Apocalypto is a tale about the Mayan Empire. The main character is Jaguar Paw, a warrior in a small village. The village is attacked and many of the men are taken to be sacrificed. The story is rather simple, but very well told. The last half of the movie is, in essence, a very long, and very well filmed chase scene. The characters are simple, undeveloping individuals, and there are little complexities to them. Jaguar Paw is like a a good guy. The bad people who attacked his village are bad. His wife is sweet, their relationship is lovely, and their friends are like most friends. The opening scenes do a good job of depicting some of the easygoingness of the friends, but the rest of the movie does little to really develop any of the characters. However, a lack of character depth makes little difference here.

The main focus of Gibson's movie is to tell the downfall of the Mayan Empire. In the beginning of the movie is a wonderful quote that tells somehting to the effect of "A civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself form within." With this quote in the back of our minds, we watch the horror and burtality of the Mayan Civilization, and can't help but think that when the Spanish (I think its the Spanish) finally arrive, the Mayans somewhat deserve what they get.

It is clear that Gibson wants us to connect the Mayan culture to ours. The scenes in the beginning of the causal friendship between the men of the village are not so different than anything we would do. Perhaps the setting is different, but the gist of the dialogue is similar to our culture. And then, there is the idea of sacrifice. The Mayans sacrificing innocents in rituals is easy equated to the United States sending out innocent troops to be "sacrificed" in the name of religion. Very, very deep similarities are prevalent here. Gibson really wants us to wonder whether our civilization is going upon this same downward trend.

In addition, the idea of religion is all important here. Surprisingly, Gibson shed's a bad light on religion here. Weird since his last movie was the Passion of the Christ. But whatever his motives, Gibson shows that when religion and state mix, bad things happen. The Mayan rituals are religious ones, and when combined with a government, lead to unnecessary sacrificing and death, destruction and horror. ANd then, when the Spanish come, holding up their crosses, we sense a new kind of horror is about to happen, led, once again, by religion. It's subtle, but its there. A powerful theme of the negative aspect of religion are prevalent in this film.

Yet above all of the political, social, and philosophical themes, Apocalytpo is a damn good movie. The visuals are brilliant, with majestic waterfalls and lucious forests. The costuming is excellent, with well created Mayan villages and cities, and the dialogue is all in ancient Mayan language. The acting is not bad, but due to non-english, it's hard to give a rating. The story is simple, but engrossing, and the action and suspense keeps you on tense and on the edge of your seat. Not to ruin anything, but the final chase scene is wonderuflly done, and greatly orchestrated.

Many say that this film is overly violent. Perhaps it is, but how else do you portray the demise of a civilization that sacrifices people. It was not as violent as I expected. GRanted, ripping people's hearts out and chopping their heads off is pretty bad, but overall, I thought it was not much more violent than Blood Diamond or The Departed, just with knives and clubs instead of guns.

Overall: Apocalypto is a well filmed engrossing movie that has an important philosophical message attached to it.

Acting: B (nothing spectacular here, non-english makes this a difficult category)
Plot: B+ (simple, yet engrossing)
Characters: C+ (a bit of a downfall, the characters are a bit one dimensional, but again, not the point of the movie)
Themes and Messages: A+
Music: B (nothing too memorable, in fact, much of the movie was without music)
Effects: A+ (gorgeous locations, visual shots, Mayan cities, etc.)

Overall: B+