Apocalypto [Blu-ray, Region B]

Highly recommended. It's just unbelievable that Apocalypto didn't win a single Academy Award. This movie is so refreshing, original and realistic. For the first time we have a chance to see how the natives of the Americas lived before the Spaniards came. Realistic on every aspect, what a photography, the beautiful natural sceneries and all the details: the wall drawings, the clothes, the use of Jade, the Mayan City. And the set was built just for the movie, it's impressive that Gibson chose not to use computer generated FX!. The "behind the scenes" bonus included in the DVD explains in rich details the hard work required to recreate the Mayan World so faithfully. More authenticity to the movie is given by the use of Yucatec Maya language, still spoken by Mayan descendants in Southern Mexico and Guatemala.Though a little bit exaggerated in the amount of human sacrifices, it was good to have a more realistic idea of how the Mesoamerican natives lived, specially when some modern revisionist have been trying to make us believe that all natives were just some peaceful environmentalists, living in harmony with nature, the famous myth of the noble savage. This movie produces the same reality shock as "Saving Private Ryan" gave us regarding the savage killings on both sides at WWII. So, for me the dose of violence was justified to crack this myth.Obviously a fiction story was required against this realistic historical background (such as in "The Titanic"), but to set the record straight, at least a couple of historical inaccuracies need to be clarified, as well as an astronomical glitch, just to remember that this film is not a history class despite its realism.(1) The Mayan civilization was over before the Spaniards came to America, so the end of the film was just a historical inaccuracy necessary to give closure to the film. The classic Mayan period shown in the movie ended almost 600 years before the Spaniards came to America. The reasons for the decline of this civilization are not well known, but the movie gave us some clues (such as deforestation, hunger and illnesses). By the way, this was a nice way to raise environmental awareness without words.(2) The massive human sacrifices depicted in the movie actually resemble a practice more common of the Aztecs (Central México), rather than Mayan (they did, but not in the "industrial" scale presented in the movie). The sun god Kukulkan did not demand human sacrifice, as presented in the movie.(3) The astronomical glitch has to do with the total eclipse of the sun. Not only an eclipse actually takes much longer to occur (a license acceptable for a time-constrained movie), but also a total eclipse only happens during a new moon (when the moon is invisible to us because the sun is behind, illuminating the dark side of the moon). Therefore, Jaguar Paw's wife could have never been under full moon later on the same day.And finally for those who really enjoy the movie and became interested in our ancient roots, such ruins of a Mayan city do exist. Visit Tikal, the largest existing ruins of a city from the Maya civilization. Plan a nice vacation to Guatemala and flight to Flores, in the Department of El Petén. The Tikal pyramids are located in the middle of a tropical rainforest. Quite a spectacle. If you like Tikal, then Teotihuacan (México) and Machu Pichu (Perú) will be your next stops.

Great movie glad it arrived unbroken and unscratched

A superb movie by Mel Gibson.

Mel Gibson film Apocalypto, as a director I find to be very controversial, but I think people judge him to much from some of the changes of life we all experience or will experience when we are approaching our middle age time of life, in regards to Mel Gibson's more personal and controversial experiences in living his life . As an actor I've always admired his ability, as a director I admire Mel Gibson even more so, in his completer determination to tell the story as it really is, and lets face it, the ancient Aztec Peoples as portrayed in Mel Gibson film 'Apocalypto' is really raw, but when investigate archaeologist findings of this ancient Aztec civilization previous to colonial times, this civilization was doing no more then any civilization of its time whether this cultural reality can be compared to Europe, India, China, or Asia, Mel Gibson's film simply tells it like it was, even if what it was in the Ancient Aztec Civilization was raw, bloody, and very graphic. The Ancient Aztec Civilization believed in human sacrifice, that in a manner of speaking was their communion with God – the film definitely portrays that reality and Mel Gibson as a director does not hold back from telling that very real truth by way of film making. That this might be to much for some peoples stomach and so called moral values – my suggestion to such people is simple, 'don't look at the film 'Apocalypto' if you have personal standards of moral values. However as piece of good film making, beside the judgmental values of moral values on the films subject matter, Mel Gibson's Film Apocalypto' is some mighty fine film making. I look forward to Mel Gibson making more real historical films, which I personal wish Mel Gibson would make a real film about the social psychology of 'African American Slavery in the United States of America' if we must consider the value of moral values in contrast to democracy, which non existent in 2014.

I heard Joe and Mel talking about this film in the podcast. I had to watch it.