The ultimate anti-chick flick. Unsurpassed violence, and brilliantly done. The guy knows how to make a movie. A great escape from our increasingly pussified culture.
The film is obviously a thinly disguised critique of the Bush administration's idiot foray into Iraq and its subsequent 'a**- kicking' by the Al Zarqawi led insurgents. As in the film EVERYONE told them how dangerous it was going to be but the Ship of Folls kept bobbing like a cork onward into the depths of HELL Brilliant film by Mel Gibson!
Gibson unblushingly intends "Apocalypto" as a clarion call warning modern man to watch his step or risk following the Mayas into decline and near-extinction. To this end he opens the story with a famous quote from historian Will Durant about the fall of Rome: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." .......http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2006/12/mels-message-christians-saved-indians.html
Finally saw it. Terrific action movie. Very well done. Cinematography is outstanding. I liked everything about it except the very end...just too many coincidences. I did not see the connection others have drawn between this movie and the Iraq war, but Gibson definitely has something to say about societies rotting from within. 4 out of 5.