Denzel Washington, Anna Kendrick, Tom Cruise, Jeremy RennerScreenshot: Sony, Photo: Lionsgate, Paramount
Every streaming service offers a wide range of film genres, but Amazon Prime Video seems to be particularly focused on the action-adventure sector. If you’re looking for pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat thrills, the streamer makes for a solid starting point.
Every streaming service offers a wide range of film genres, but Amazon Prime Video seems to be particularly focused on the action-adventure sector. If you’re looking for pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat thrills, the streamer makes for a solid starting point.
- 1/31/2024
- by The A.V. Club
- avclub.com
Apocalypto
It really began with his Braveheart more than a decade ago, though no one really noticed then because it obeyed all the conventions of a big Hollywood epic, albeit a very violent one. But Mel Gibson's career as a film director is becoming one long essay in human cruelty through the ages. Whatever spiritual messages devout Christians took from 2004's The Passion of the Christ, its violence was pornographic.
In Apocalypto, Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safinia turn to the Mayan civilization that dominated present-day Mexico and Central America from 2400 B.C. to the 15th century A.D. They ignore its advances in urban planning, mathematics, art, astronomy, agriculture and writing systems to dwell on its utter barbarity. Men hunt men, rape women and sacrifice victims by tearing hearts from quivering bodies with joyful ferocity.
This is no cheesy exploitation movie, though, but a first-rate epic build around one man's will to survive to rescue his family. In other words, in the good Hollywood tradition, it's got a hero, villain, damsel in distress, exotic natives and breathtaking vistas that evoke feelings of awe and dread. The guy knows how to make a heart-pounding movie; he just happens to be a cinematic sadist.Gibson's well-publicized personal problems, the film's eye-catching key art and critics calling him a sadist probably add up to money in the bank for the Walt Disney Co. Apocalypto might not reach the $600 million worldwide grosses of Passion, but it will attract a considerable international crowd. To his credit, there is never a dull moment.
The movie opens as the Mayan civilization is in its death throes, though no one knows it. We are in a tranquil rain forest where a small community of hunters and baby-makers live in ecological harmony with a nature that provides animals to slaughter and food to gather. Then the village is attacked by marauding mercenary warriors from the capital looking for sacrificial victims to assuage the gods for a drought and plague.
Men and a few women to be sold as slaves or concubines are brutally tied to long poles and marched through the rain forest to the Mayan city. There the men meet their fate atop a pyramid where they are painted blue, draped over an altar stone for an obsidian knife to plunge into the chest and rip out the heart with surgical skill, the heart going into a fire, the head chopped from the body and the corpse flung down the steps to the cackling glee of the assembled townsfolk. Do these guys know how to party or what?
The central figure is family man Jaguar Paw, played by Rudy Youngblood, an expressive and charismatic Native American with considerable athletic and thespian skills. All the actors are Native Americans, and the astute casting is arguably the best thing about this movie. Dalia Hernandez, a Mexican dancer and student, has a lovely face that catches the terror of Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife, who is left behind in the village well that first protects, then traps her and her child.
Canadian Jonathan Brewer plays comical sidekick Blunted, who is the butt of every joke. New Mexican actor Raoul Trujillo makes a sturdy foe as the warrior leader, Zero Wolf, who captures Jaguar Paw and his mates. His villainy is trumped by his sadistic underling Snake Ink -- don't you just love these Jacobean names? -- played by Mexican actor Rodolfo Palacios with zeal. And so it goes down to the smallest role, even a busybody mother-in-law instantly recognizable to many a suffering contemporary husband.
For the first 85 minutes, we along with the captives are dragged into a world of chaos and confusion on this frightening, arduous journey. The freshness of this world, nothing like it having appeared on film before, captures our imagination. Then, suddenly, thanks to divine intervention by solar eclipse, Jaguar Paw escapes his captors.
The movie turns into a much more conventional chase movie with Zero Wolf and his gang racing through the jungle to hunt down and kill Jaguar Paw. Yet the deeper the chase goes into the rain forest, the more the home court advantage swings to our hero. Soon we have a reverse Deliverance, where the hillbilly is the good guy and every dreadful fate that befalls his pursuers gets cheers from the popcorn crowd.
Like Passion, Gibson feels -- and he may be right here -- that ancient languages transport audiences into another time and place. The script has been translated into the Mayan dialect spoken in the Yucatan peninsula today. So the movie comes to us in subtitles, my favorite one being "He's fucked."
Often, though, the movie feels like an illustrated lecture without the lecture. We witness all sorts of strange cultural and natural phenomena without having a clue as to their meanings. Why does the rain forest tribe have no defense system? What do the tattoos, headpieces and jewelry mean? Why are sacrificial victims painted blue? It's nice to know that there are few university professors who actually understand this movie.
What's really puzzling is that everyone seems to speak the same language, meaning that enough travel and trade exist so our remote village would certainly be aware of the barbarity of the capital city and its roving warriors. So why does everything that happens to them come as a surprise?
Gibson's crew is exemplary in creating this lost world. Cinematographer Dean Semler, shooting digitally with Panavision's new high-definition Genesis camera system, seemingly can get his graceful, fluid camera into just about any place in that rain forest, which he fills with dazzling light. Designer Tom Sanders' constructions convey us into a world of terrifying oddness and savagery. James Horner's score mingles weird, primordial notes with vague Latin sounds and even Sufi music by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
APOCALYPTO
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures in association with Icon Prods.
Credits: Director: Mel Gibson; Screenwriters: Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia; Producers: Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey; Executive producers: Ned Down, Vicki Christianson; Director of photography: Dean Semler; Production designer: Tom Sanders; Music: James Horner; Co-producer: Farhad Safinia; Costume designer: Mayes C. Rubeo; Editor: John Wright.
Cast: Jaguar Paw: Rudy Youngblood; Seven: Dalia Hernandez; Blunted: Jonathan Brewer; Flint Sky: Morris Birdyellowhead; Turtles Run: Carlos Emilio Baez; Curl Nose: Amilcar Ramirez; Smoke Frog: Israel Contreras; Cocoa Leaf: Israel Rios.
MPAA rating R, running time 136 minutes.
In Apocalypto, Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safinia turn to the Mayan civilization that dominated present-day Mexico and Central America from 2400 B.C. to the 15th century A.D. They ignore its advances in urban planning, mathematics, art, astronomy, agriculture and writing systems to dwell on its utter barbarity. Men hunt men, rape women and sacrifice victims by tearing hearts from quivering bodies with joyful ferocity.
This is no cheesy exploitation movie, though, but a first-rate epic build around one man's will to survive to rescue his family. In other words, in the good Hollywood tradition, it's got a hero, villain, damsel in distress, exotic natives and breathtaking vistas that evoke feelings of awe and dread. The guy knows how to make a heart-pounding movie; he just happens to be a cinematic sadist.Gibson's well-publicized personal problems, the film's eye-catching key art and critics calling him a sadist probably add up to money in the bank for the Walt Disney Co. Apocalypto might not reach the $600 million worldwide grosses of Passion, but it will attract a considerable international crowd. To his credit, there is never a dull moment.
The movie opens as the Mayan civilization is in its death throes, though no one knows it. We are in a tranquil rain forest where a small community of hunters and baby-makers live in ecological harmony with a nature that provides animals to slaughter and food to gather. Then the village is attacked by marauding mercenary warriors from the capital looking for sacrificial victims to assuage the gods for a drought and plague.
Men and a few women to be sold as slaves or concubines are brutally tied to long poles and marched through the rain forest to the Mayan city. There the men meet their fate atop a pyramid where they are painted blue, draped over an altar stone for an obsidian knife to plunge into the chest and rip out the heart with surgical skill, the heart going into a fire, the head chopped from the body and the corpse flung down the steps to the cackling glee of the assembled townsfolk. Do these guys know how to party or what?
The central figure is family man Jaguar Paw, played by Rudy Youngblood, an expressive and charismatic Native American with considerable athletic and thespian skills. All the actors are Native Americans, and the astute casting is arguably the best thing about this movie. Dalia Hernandez, a Mexican dancer and student, has a lovely face that catches the terror of Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife, who is left behind in the village well that first protects, then traps her and her child.
Canadian Jonathan Brewer plays comical sidekick Blunted, who is the butt of every joke. New Mexican actor Raoul Trujillo makes a sturdy foe as the warrior leader, Zero Wolf, who captures Jaguar Paw and his mates. His villainy is trumped by his sadistic underling Snake Ink -- don't you just love these Jacobean names? -- played by Mexican actor Rodolfo Palacios with zeal. And so it goes down to the smallest role, even a busybody mother-in-law instantly recognizable to many a suffering contemporary husband.
For the first 85 minutes, we along with the captives are dragged into a world of chaos and confusion on this frightening, arduous journey. The freshness of this world, nothing like it having appeared on film before, captures our imagination. Then, suddenly, thanks to divine intervention by solar eclipse, Jaguar Paw escapes his captors.
The movie turns into a much more conventional chase movie with Zero Wolf and his gang racing through the jungle to hunt down and kill Jaguar Paw. Yet the deeper the chase goes into the rain forest, the more the home court advantage swings to our hero. Soon we have a reverse Deliverance, where the hillbilly is the good guy and every dreadful fate that befalls his pursuers gets cheers from the popcorn crowd.
Like Passion, Gibson feels -- and he may be right here -- that ancient languages transport audiences into another time and place. The script has been translated into the Mayan dialect spoken in the Yucatan peninsula today. So the movie comes to us in subtitles, my favorite one being "He's fucked."
Often, though, the movie feels like an illustrated lecture without the lecture. We witness all sorts of strange cultural and natural phenomena without having a clue as to their meanings. Why does the rain forest tribe have no defense system? What do the tattoos, headpieces and jewelry mean? Why are sacrificial victims painted blue? It's nice to know that there are few university professors who actually understand this movie.
What's really puzzling is that everyone seems to speak the same language, meaning that enough travel and trade exist so our remote village would certainly be aware of the barbarity of the capital city and its roving warriors. So why does everything that happens to them come as a surprise?
Gibson's crew is exemplary in creating this lost world. Cinematographer Dean Semler, shooting digitally with Panavision's new high-definition Genesis camera system, seemingly can get his graceful, fluid camera into just about any place in that rain forest, which he fills with dazzling light. Designer Tom Sanders' constructions convey us into a world of terrifying oddness and savagery. James Horner's score mingles weird, primordial notes with vague Latin sounds and even Sufi music by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
APOCALYPTO
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures in association with Icon Prods.
Credits: Director: Mel Gibson; Screenwriters: Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia; Producers: Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey; Executive producers: Ned Down, Vicki Christianson; Director of photography: Dean Semler; Production designer: Tom Sanders; Music: James Horner; Co-producer: Farhad Safinia; Costume designer: Mayes C. Rubeo; Editor: John Wright.
Cast: Jaguar Paw: Rudy Youngblood; Seven: Dalia Hernandez; Blunted: Jonathan Brewer; Flint Sky: Morris Birdyellowhead; Turtles Run: Carlos Emilio Baez; Curl Nose: Amilcar Ramirez; Smoke Frog: Israel Contreras; Cocoa Leaf: Israel Rios.
MPAA rating R, running time 136 minutes.
- 12/1/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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