After his DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic rage this summer, Mel Gibson eclipsed Tom Cruise as America's preeminent crazy male celebrity. It's now impossible to discuss his movies, particularly everyone's favorite religious snuff film, ""The Passion of the Christ,"" without discussing the increasingly enigmatic man behind them, especially since his latest offerings have been so personal in nature. Gibson throws himself even further out there with ""Apocalypto,"" his much-ballyhooed epic set in 16th century Mayan civilization, and while the results are certainly not for everyone, it is a flawed but furiously entertaining adrenaline rush of a movie.
With a cast of unknowns speaking in subtitled Yucatec and enough brutal violence for half a dozen movies, ""Apocalypto"" is a risky, unconventional endeavor that many will laugh off or disregard. For more adventurous viewers, especially the kind of people who own everything in the '80s Schwarzenegger catalog, the story of young Mayan hunter Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is a vicious, compelling yarn. Gibson immerses us into the daily life of Jaguar Paw's hunting tribe—slaying a tapir, divvying up the spoils, playing nasty practical jokes—and then throws a malicious band of raping and pillaging warriors into the mix. Women are ravaged, men suitable for slavery are kidnapped, and the once-peaceful community is completely destroyed in the blink of an eye. Jaguar Paw manages to hide his pregnant wife (Dalia Hernandez) and son in a hole in the ground before getting beaten down and forced to march with his fellow hunters to the Mayan capital. After another series of progressively awful events transpire in the city, Jaguar Paw escapes and runs back to retrieve his wife and child, with a clan of sadistic Mayans in hot pursuit.
Essentially, ""Apocalypto"" is a chase movie, as the entire second half is comprised of Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo) and his men mercilessly tracking Jaguar Paw, who is fleet of foot even with a spear protruding from his side. Despite the setting and the subtitles, the film is a conventional genre adventure structurally, and it has some of the most energetic, muscular action sequences in years. This is not a film for the squeamish, as the lack of studio intervention allows Gibson to indulge in the type of rough, extraordinarily graphic violence he has become famous for. There are a few scenes in this thing that easily could have warranted an NC-17 rating, particularly a lovingly rendered sequence involving a jaguar attack (gorehounds will never know how much they always wanted to see a jaguar munch a guy's face off). Toward the end, Gibson goes over the top to the point where his movie starts to verge on self-parody, but even at its very goofiest (including the most unexpected ""Midnight Cowboy"" homage possible), ""Apocalypto"" is compulsively watchable entertainment.
Newcomer Youngblood is an impressive screen presence, and he efficiently anchors this ethnographic bloodbath, as do the talented ensemble, especially co-stars Hernandez and Trujillo. Zero Wolf and his sadistic second-in-command, Snake Ink (Rodolfo Palacios), make great, snarling villains for our frequently injured hero, as Gibson isn't too interested in humanizing them. Once the exposition concludes and Zero Wolf's men attack Jaguar Paw's tribe, ""Apocalypto"" rarely pauses for breath. Gibson is chiefly concerned with throwing more and more daunting obstacles in Jaguar Paw's path, for our viewing pleasure, as he desperately evades the bad guys.
We have to remember that, his personal demons and violent fetishes notwithstanding, Gibson is a tremendously gifted filmmaker who is capable of telling a phenomenal story, at least when Jesus isn't involved. Aside from Darren Aronofsky's masterful ""The Fountain,"" ""Apocalypto"" is the most intimate, indulgently personal directorial performance this year. Sure, it has some severe flaws, but even the film's excesses give us a fascinating glimpse into Gibson's head, and the ferociously violent contents of his mind translate beautifully to the screen. ""Apocalypto"" may not be up to the standards of ""Braveheart,"" but it is a thrillingly atypical event picture that is one of the most exciting, if not best, movies of the year.
