Yes, you are correct.

I used to pull on my beard like that constantly before I got my meds. Must be a Christian thing.

Hell is big.

some of you had to have seen this. Forecasters are saying its going to be #1 this weekend.

We took it in, and it certainly was riveting. Visually it was a leap forward for ol' Mel. Use of crane and dolly shots were certainly ordered up without hesitation. Story and characters were developed so that you at least had some sembalance of a feeling as to whether they lived.

This is the second film in 2 weeks that I've watched involving Mayans (other was The Fountain) so I feel sort of Mayan overload. Completely worthwhile.

yeah i really enjoyed it. some parts were absurd, but it was a pretty great action flick. the first half is really is really satisfying with the story and the drama. the 2nd half is just pretty smart action.

2006: Year Of The Mayan

went and saw blood diamond instead, but there was definitely a separate line for people waiting to get in to Apocalypto, so i'd be surprised if it wasn't the #1 movie this week.

You know, that tag line should read "No One Can Outrun HIS Destiny." It's grammatically incorrect. Pretty lousy for print copy.

what makes me upset is that the poster is awesome, but the guy on it is a bad guy and not the main character as it should be.

Took my kids to see Happy Feet. Will have to see Mel's Mayans next week.

Saw this last night, the movie gets a big thumbs up from me. Excellently done. Blood filled, gory, and unapologetic about it. Definitely don't bring your kids to see this one.

The movie got me thinking about just how cruel and torturous the conquistadors that came later and well, just what was the natives life's alternative either out in the dangerous jungle or under the foot of Mayans/Aztecs/Incas? Surely their lives were not a vision of peace, happiness and full of warm fuzzy rainbows to be sure. So when I hear native Americans complain about the 'brutality" of the white settlers, you have to weigh the fact that their own life and governing was not much different. Most, if not all, routinely raped, slaved, and dispatched rival tribes with impunity as well, just without smallpox infected blankets and the benefit of cold, hard iron.

I read an anthropological book once called, "The Life of The Yanomamo", an isolated tribe of South American natives that still exist today along the Amazon river. Despite their avoidance of white settlers and their continued encroachment, these people are the most violent, savage people alive on earth.

This was fine. It was never boring. A bit outrageous in some parts. But I found it noteworthy that a Mayan translation of "He's fucked" actually exists. Or per Mel G. anyways.

..every year is a Maya year in my land

Saw it a coupel weeks ago and liked it. Here's my review from Friday's paper:

Mel Gibson has said that wanting to film a great foot chase was what started him on the path that led to the creation of his new epic feature, "Apocalypto."

It's a simple, populist idea, doing for bipeds what "The French Connection" and "Ronin" did for cars.

So one wonders how the troubled actor-director came to select the movie's key framework - completely unknown actors, dozens of graphic killings, a setting in a quixotic, extinct culture and the use of subtitles over native Mayan dialogue - to set up his auteuristic fetish.

It's a fair question. That's a lot of hurdles for the average popcorn muncher to surmount on the way into the cineplex. But what matters most is that it's worth it.

That's not surprising, because once the film gets rolling it follows - with its distinctive flair - the virtuous hero-vs.-empire story line that earned Gibson an Oscar in 1996 for "Braveheart" and got similar results in 2001 for Ridley Scott and "Gladiator."

Simply put, Gibson's done this period action movie thing before. Because he's walking well-trodden ground, the quirky choices end up helping "Apocalypto," transporting it into a realm where it escapes all but the most basic trappings of the genre.

Most important is the hero, Jaguar Paw (played by Rudy Youngblood), a young father who lives in a jungle village in Central America, away from a comparatively modernized but declining Mayan empire that sees human sacrifice as the key to appeasing the gods and changing its fortune.

Jaguar Paw's village winds up on the hit list of a band of Mayan marauders - we know this because they're much more heavily tattooed and pierced and look mean, like any decent marauder should.

Striking early in the morning, the Mayans lay waste to the village, killing some and imprisoning most for transport back to the temples for sacrifice.

Jaguar Paw suffers the same fate after hiding his pregnant wife and son in a deep natural well, and joins the rest of his villagers on a trail of tears march toward a then unknown fate.

Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" got lots of ink for its incredibly graphic violence, but anyone who saw "Braveheart" knows the guy doesn't hold back on gore and "Apocalypto" is no different.

The laundry list of killings here includes decapitations, mauling, stabbings, impalings, poisoning, slit throats and wrists, bludgeonings and whatever the shorthand is for getting your heart cut out before being thrown down a couple hundred temple steps.

It's on those temple steps where the movie draws a contemporary link, with an overblown emperor (presidential?) type who preaches that the sacrifices are necessary for society to move forward and help the Mayans become "masters of our time."

A foreshadowed omen spares Jaguar Paw as he's on the chopping block, putting him on the chase home to rescue his family, with head hunter Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo) leading a pack of adversaries close behind him.

The south Mexican jungle used for filming lets Gibson put a great wrinkle in his ambitious chase, one where the beautiful setting is also an equal-opportunity adversary that's full of danger at every step.

The taut chase scenes let Youngblood shine most, combining believable grief, pride and desperation against the mercenary and unrelenting but honorable hunter of Trujillo.

The body language and eye contact of the actors - with great direction and cinematography - make the fretted-over subtitles pretty much unnecessary for the last third of the movie, where the chase is all that matters and action becomes the universal language.

One scene where it's key, though, finds Jaguar Paw yelling to his pursuers from the bottom of a waterfall, "This is my jungle!"

It's this film's conceit to the "Freedom!" moment in "Braveheart" - and a reminder that even with all the unorthodox window dressing, we've been here before and this is the stuff Gibson does best.

Yeah, it's nitpicking. But it's wrong. I don't care what that 1996-looking site says.

If you love somebody, set them free.

Turn of the century magicians must be very upset.

i'm interested but will not see it. boycotting all mel gibson movies from now on. he can find other patrons at the jerk store.

Just saw this tonight. WAY better than Apocalypto.

Even with the crap ass accent that DiCaprio does? Gawd, he almost one ups VanDerBeek's Texas accent. Almost.



Its a great film even though he made those statements. I don't boycott "Birth of A Nation" because of the content, or the man behind it. I recognize it for what it is.

Yeah, that's really my only genuine criticism. That aspect of his character wasn't convincing. His accent in The Aviator didn't work well either, but for some reason the movie did.

yeah that accent was mostly him saying " yah yah?" at the end of every sentence. why didn't they get thomas jane for this one? isn't he african?

I thought he was supposed to be Australian? I'll probably wait to netflix it. Its getting some award heat though.

rhodesian? Zimbabweian?

yah yah?

i was thinking south african from the previews, but what do i know. i'm only an EXPERT.