DAN: So this New Years I found myself alone and in the dark drinking cheap wine from the bottle and I thought, "Man I really wish I could usher in the new year by watching a film about ancient Mayan culture" when it dawned on me I had a copy of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (which I think means Apricot in German). You are probibaly wondering how I got a copy of the movie seeing how it is still in theatres and my reply is 1) my grandfather is a member of the Warner Bros academy so we get early dvd releases and 2) mind your god damn business. Back to the film. The only problem is that it is a Mel Gibson film. Mel is a habitual racist, undying narcicist/egomaniac, drunkard, but to his merit he goes into every film knowing what men want: to see other men have their faces eaten by jaguars. In this sense the movie delivers. Seriously, some guy gets his face eaten by a jaguar. This movie was more action packed than a hookers vagina and more tense than waiting for the std results after sleeping with one. The plot is pretty much about some guy whose villiage gets pwnd and he starts pwning the purpetrator pwners. The only interruption in the movie is when my mother walked in the room and told me the main character Jaguar Paw had nice legs and a great ass so I had to take a quick intermission to vomit. Other than that the movie went without a hitch and I definitely recommend it. The one thing that disturbed me however is that I left the movie with a disdain for the non pragmatic mayans and their culture but I remember that Mel did the same thing to the Jews in the Passion. However, I reconciled that it was reasonable for me to dislike the Mayans based off of a movie because I hate most things south of the border anyways. Just kidding.

STEVEN: I'm not going to spare many words for Apocolypto. It is not a bad film by any means. If it were possible as a filmgoer to sit down to this piece and pretend like the people depicted within its filmspace were some fictional culture from a distant galaxy, then it would possibly be a great film. However, every ticking second of this film nagged at my sensibilities as a rational, historically sensible human being from Earth. Unfortunately for the Mayans, I and many other Americans learn about their history in the seventh grade. At this time, I was busy figuring out how to create a more efficient rubber band gun, so my interest was divided. I do remember the Mayans to have been quite advanced for their time and circumstances. I remember that they had created the most accurate astrological calender known and had predicted the movement of the cosmos much farther into the future than any other culture upon the Earth. This knowledge created a picture of them in my mind as wise and deliberate savages looking to the future. In the twisted psyche of men like Mel Gibson this information translates to an image of faces covered more with jewelry than personality. His Mayans are the thing of nightmares. This helps greatly to associate the viewer with his protagonist, but the ultimate end to this portrayal is a smear campaign on history.

The film itself beyond the first 20 or 30 minutes is non-stop action. A foot chase unparalleled by anything else I have ever seen. And as Dan notes, there is some gruesome stuff that hardcore action fans will get a kick out of. Mel Gibson also has a knack for bringing out great acting from the most unlikely of places. Here he has a large troop of non-traditional actors who seem to be (if they aren't) of actual Mayan descendents. The characters are all very well laid out and their personalities are varied harmoniously... For the first 30 minutes that is. For the entire action sequence there is: 1. The protagonist (typical good-guy) 2. His wife and child (they may as well be a giant sign declaring 'TENSION') 3. A gaggle of evil Mayans (hell spawn). I saw this film after my date and I went to 3 theaters trying to find something worth watching. This is all there was. We weren't being that picky either. It's a sad state of affairs today.