"Fucking Mayans. The Mayans are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Mayan?" is not a piece of dialogue from this film, and, for that matter, nobody calls anybody Sugar Tits. Still, Angry Mel Gibson has come up trumps here, with a fantastic, kick-ass chase movie set against a backdrop of the decline of the Mayan civilisation in the 16th century.
As with his Jesus fetish opus The Passion Of The Christ, this goes for maximum authenticity, with all the dialogue spoken in Mayan dialect Yucatec. But don't be fooled into expecting anything too spiritual or educational - ultimately Apocalypto really is just a chase movie, a very arty-looking action film with one man being hunted in the jungle by a tribe of vengeful psychos as he races home, half-dead, to rescue his pregnant wife and son from a hole in the ground. Very exciting, extremely gory and blindingly beautiful, this is great.
*Out 5 January
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