Review of Apocalypto (2006) by Markd. — 07 Dec 2006

This movie was awful. Although the early parts of the film created an excellently crafted vision of a lost world, the film quickly degenerated into pointless torture-porn. The film sacrificed continuity, drama, and plot in the interest of pressing a polished vision of misery that was neither entertaining or educational, and seemed to have less purpose than what you see in a horror movie gore-fest.

I have no problem with violence in films, and in fact the most distasteful scenes weren't intrinsicly violent, but I couldn't get the image of Mel Gibson masturbating in the back of the theater (I saw an early screening that he personally introduced) to the relentless misery of both the characters on screen and the people in the theater.