I saw Mel Gibson's Apocalypto in Silicon Valley today. It is a message film and the message was made clear to me when I left the theater and drove home on the expressway which was packed with cars in both directions. The movie was about two dying cultures, the Aztecs and the Mayans, and was also telling us that we are about to die. Mel Gibson has said that he considers our service men and women as being human sacrifices for serving in Iraq. And he has said that we should pay attention to the Mayan calendar which runs out in 2012. The movie plot is about one man's struggle to resist evil and to save his family. That keeps us interested. The film is not for children, but the violence is less than it could have been. I liked it better than his Jesus film, but not as well as V for Vendetta which was more obvious in its critique. He does show the failures of the Aztec society. He also tells us that fear is useless as a response to a challenge even if we face certain death. He has a comment about the emptiness of man made in the beginning of the movie by an elder Mayan storyteller. And he does have a quote from Will Durand to the effect that a civilization must be destroyed from within before it is destroyed from without. And that is what is happening to America.
The movie has no white actors and gives non-whites a chance to further their careers. It also talks about the destruction of the environmnet. It is worth seeing but it is not the greatest movie of the year.