Review: Apocalypto

Hello gang. First apologies for the rather poor review of Night At The Museum, really shows I should wait and think about the review insted of reeling out a stream of conciousness.

Review: Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2005, USA)

Mel Gibson. Interesting bloke isn't he? Oscar darling with Braveheart, Christian saviour (as such) with Passion of the Christ, whose success, I would say in large part, led to the idea that Apocalypto could become a breakthrough hit. But the contreversy surrounding the "sugartits" incident has quetioned whether Mel Gibson has actually gone too far, whether this film may be one step too far in a somewhat fortuitous career thus far.

Apocalypto is an astoundingly well-made film. From the very first moment, the film shows itself to be a visual feast. Gibson along with the Director of Photography Dean Semler, has managed to create a film which shows off sumptous locales, the village and temple are breathtaking in particular while not forgetting that this film is about a civilisation brought up on living in a tight community and harsh violence. Gibson uses every visual trick he seems to be have in the book (Including the christened by housemate Helly "Boar-Cam") which give the impression of a constantly moving environment. Moving for survival, moving for hunting, moving to a imminent death, Gibson captures it all with an intensity which I cannot say I have seen in even the most hardcore action film in a fair while (Well, except for Crank...) The violence? Probably the most contreversial aspect of the film, while it is pretty extreme, and many pople in my screening seemed to think so, I myself did not think it was too bad, though I think it says something more about me than them...

Judging from this review so far, you think I would love this film. And yet, the narrative holes! Unlike many people, I had few problems with the script (Though "He's fucked" and "I am walking here" are ridiculous), but the sheer logic holes astounded me. I really don't want to give spoilers so I won't but they annoyed me for the entire length of the film, I was annoyed and it only got worse as the film went on. It took me out of the film completely, and I feel that I may have missed something from the sheer brilliance of what was on the screen itself because of it. I don't feel I would bother seeing it again sheerly because of how much this aspect of the film annoyed me. The perfomances were uniformly beliveable and it is quite amazing to think that most of the cast were unknowns. The editing is Oscar worthy, the music was fitting and not too overblown, but... I just can't bring myself to really like it that much.

First real shame of 2007.