Apocalypto
Directed by Mel Gibson
- Kevin Ward2 de julio de 2025I have been on vacation on the Maya Riviera for a week which included a visit to Chichen Itza. Amazing vacation, highly recommend. Inspired me to rewatch Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. It’s still an pretty incredible film, even if it didn’t quite hold up as well as I thought it would. Starting with the good, I loved the use Yucatec Maya language. I wish more films had the courage to film in authentic languages even when they know their audience doesn’t speak it. Prey, for example, could have been even better if it was filmed with Comanche dialogue (and not just in English with a Comanche dub option). Native American actors and that it was shot on location in Mexico, give the film an incredibly authentic feel. The parts that didn’t hold up as well as I remember are most of the opening 25 minutes or so, that establishes Jaguar Paw and his fellow villagers. There’s lots of sexual jokes that come off as very juvenile. Most of the relationships depicted feel like western stereotypes ported over onto a Maya story. One villager, for example, has an overbearing mother-in-law demanding he produce some grand children, which is played as a joke. There was actually very little from the opening that I liked all that much. Once the ransacking of Jaguar Paw’s village happens though, it’s an incredible and cinematic journey that culminates in essentially a epic chase sequence seeing the hostile Maya tribe chasing Jaguar Paw all the way back to his village. And I loved how a Jaguar and a snake played a role in assisting Jaguar Paw’s escape and how some of his captors saw that as a bad omen. There’s clearly inaccuracies in it’s depiction of the Maya culture, too, though. One pivotal scene hinges on the Jaguar Paw’s captors being surprised when solar eclipse occurs and blots out the Sun. But we know the Mayans to be some of the most advanced astronomers the world has ever seen, having erected Chichen Itza with specific dimensions and positioning to create shadows indicating the equinoxes. They had accurately predicted solar eclipses hundreds of years into the future. The idea that they wouldn’t have known that a solar eclipse was happening this day is preposterous. That’s the one that stuck out to me, though I’m sure there are plenty more. I was glad I had a good excuse to rewatch this film finally. It had been at least 15 years since I had seen it and it was nice to go into it with some fresh context about the Maya culture.
- Gianni Cavuoto29 de noviembre de 2025A brutal story of survival and percervence. At no point do you belive Jaguar Paw will not complete his mission. I love the way this movie ends. For the myans it's the beginning of the end. I highly recommend this. Just know there is zero English spoken in the whole movie. I don't think it actually needs it.
Apocalypto Trivia
Apocalypto was released on 8 de diciembre de 2006.
Apocalypto was directed by Mel Gibson.
Apocalypto has a runtime of 2h 17min.
Apocalypto was produced by Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey, Sergio Miranda.
Historia ambientada en la época del imperio maya. Cuando la idílica existencia de los mayas es brutalmente interrumpida por el ataque de una fuerza invasora, un hombre emprende un arriesgado viaje a un mundo regido por el miedo y la opresión en el que le espera un incierto final. Debido a un giro del destino y espoleado por el amor a su esposa y a su familia, emprenderá el regreso a su hogar en un desesperado esfuerzo por preservar su forma de vida...
The key characters in Apocalypto are Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), Zero Wolf (Raoul Max Trujillo), Middle Eye (Gerardo Taracena).
Apocalypto is rated 18.
Apocalypto is a Suspense, Action, Adventure film.
Apocalypto has an audience rating of 7.9 out of 10.
Apocalypto had a budget of 40 MUS$.
Apocalypto has made 120,7 MUS$ at the box office.