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Apocalypto
About halfway through Mel Gibson's Apocalypto there is a very dopey sequence that is necessary for the remainder of the script to work, in which a little girl prophesizes what is going to happen to the heroes and the villains. Without it, the coincidences that enable the hero to succeed would be too outrageous to accept (although there is a perfectly logical reason for the biggest one), and Gibson gets the moment out of the way as quickly and unobtrusively as he can, but it's still pretty dumb. That moment aside, however, the 2006 feature is a rollickingly enjoyable jungle adventure, set, as everyone surely knows, in Mesoamerica before it was infected by the Europeans. On the Touchstone Home Entertainment DVD (UPC#786936705089, $30), with the jungle noises surrounding you and James Horner's partially primitive musical score pounding away, it is especially captivating. Although the story is as simple as they come-the hero is taken away from his family by the bad guys, but eventually escapes and is chased by the villains (he uses his knowledge of the jungle to get the best of them), while cross-cutting reveals that his family is also in peril-the setting is thrillingly fresh and unique. The movie may run 138 minutes, but it barrels along so vigorously that you hardly know the time has passed. If the film's speculation on what a pre-Columbian metropolis was like is not entirely accurate, it is still a fully believable alternative, and the educational value of the sequences set there are enough, alone, to make the film worthwhile. The performers apparently speak some sort of pre-Columbia language as well, but convey most of their feelings with physical mannerisms and expressions that, given the circumstances, are adeptly executed. Finally, it is necessary to make note of the film's violence, if only to dismiss it as a non-issue. In Gibson's two previous films-the obnoxious finale of Braveheart and innumerable times in The Passion of the Christ-the violence was over-accentuated with an emotional focus that sent both films off kilter, allowing the conveyance of pain to supersede the psychological or spiritual conflicts it was intended to underscore. In Apocalypto, however, the violence is just good old plain movie violence, 2006-style, upping the ante and increasing the thrills, but not interfering with the viewer's stake in the hero's challenge.The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is excellent. The darkest shadows are carefully detailed, and whatever special effects have been added are indiscernible. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital track is marvelous, but there is a DTS track that is even sharper and harder, constantly adding to the film's encompassing spell. The default English subtitles can be suppressed if you wish-certainly after an initial viewing you'll be able to follow the story perfectly well without them, little girl's pronouncements aside-and there are optional French and Spanish subtitles, too. A single, minute-long deleted scene-a reflective moment contributing to the film's theme-is presented, as is a 25-minute production documentary that gives you the gist of how the very elaborate and complex undertaking was executed. Gibson and screenwriter/assistant producer Farhad Safinia provide a commentary over both the film and the deleted scene. They do not rush to explain every filmmaking trick or historical reference employed, but they do keep the talk moving with that sort of information as they also reminisce about the shoot and laugh good-naturedly at their ambitions.
"Farhad found this guy, because we didn't have a 'king.' They kept bringing us guys from the gym and they were very nice guys but they looked like guys from the gym, and I said, ' I need a guy that I want to know with just one look at him, because he doesn't say anything, why he's the king." So Farhad went down to the docks and brought me back three guys and by golly, he had the king with him. You wanted to know, on sight, that this guy had murdered his brother for the job. He's got that look."
"What did you call it?"
"The sneer of cold command. I borrowed that from Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ozymandias of Egypt. 'The sneer of cold command.' But he certainly had it. And green eyes. Almost Egyptian."
July 10, 2007
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