This is a pity, because the most resonant sequence is the relatively brief but admirably controlled central passage from jungle through to the city. Though "Apocalypto" is anthropologically exact and historically adventurous (to put it mildly), its director betrays little interest in Mayan society beyond its copious capacity for bloodletting. In keeping with his title, though, Gibson prefers a more portentous quotation, something from the popular historian Will Durant: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." But that epigraph suggests contemporary parallels the film barely hints at. It all brings to mind the old quotation, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." And the going here can get really tough. It's at this point that the heavens will intervene, and Jaguar Paw is spared death to endure further trials. Then he will be marched through the forest along with the other men from his tribe, brought to a terrifying city where he will be daubed in blue pigment, dragged to the top of a ziggurat and laid down on a sacrificial altar where the high priest will prepare to pluck out his heart and slice off his head. He will be beaten and bound, and see his father's throat cut for his captors' vicious amusement. Over the course of two or three days, Gibson's hero Jaguar Paw (newcomer Rudy Youngblood) will wake to find his village overrun by a rapacious war party. There is a story - quite well told at times - but the violence is unrelenting, often grisly, and ultimately sadistic. On that score, his new film, "Mel Gibson's Apocalypto," is full-bodied and then some, a meaty red with plenty of punch and a bitter aftertaste.
Nevertheless, audiences have been trained to believe that indigenous people in the jungle can kill humans with blow darts, so its a jungle cliche that nobody questions.(CNN) - Having crucified Jesus in excruciating detail in his last film, and allowed himself to be drawn and quartered at considerable length in "Braveheart," Mel Gibson's fetish for movie martyrdom is as well known as his taste for claret. I don't know if the poison works on humans, but I doubt it works as quickly as it does here.
Poison arrow frogs actually are used by indiginous people to poison the tips of their hunting darts.
The toad is actually a harmless toad painted yellow and black so that it looks similar to one of the species of yellow and black poison arrow frogs that do have poisonous skin secretions. He catches a toad that we are supposed to believe is poisonous, breaks off three thorns from a thorn tree, sticks the thorns into the frog to cover them with its poison, then rolls up a leaf and shoots the darts at one of his pursuers, who dies quickly. One of his makeshift weapons is a dart gun tipped with poison. Seriously!Īfter Jaguar Paw crawls through the quicksand he is covered with black mud and he has no weapons so he is forced to improvise to kill off his pursuers. He jumps over a waterfall and crawls through a pit of quicksand, and he's able to kill off all of his pursuers, one by one.
Nevertheless, he is still able to outrun a band of warriors and a huge black jaguar, all day and night and the next day.
In the frog scene, the hero of the movie, Jaguar Paw, already wounded and starving, is shot by an arrow that completely passes through his body. But Mel Gibson co-wrote and directed it to be so over-exaggerated and hyper-violent that it is unbelievable and I just couldn't take it seriously. I'm not a fan of this movie despite the good cinematography, sound design, make-up, costumes, locations, and some good action scenes, too. Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.