Apocalypto
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I went to the first matinee on Friday to see this movie. The buzz, the controversy, the online discussion and most of all the trailer and previews I saw with my own eyes led me to have a good deal of hope for this movie. I wasn't disappointed. A great movie is magic, it can transport you completely out of your body and into the heart of the movie itself. Apocalypto is a great movie and it did just that for me. It's a cross between the movies Braveheart and Naked Prey (1966 Cornel Wilde) and National Geographic if the National Geographic was able to bring those ancient cultures to life. The movie is one man against insurmountable odds and as it's happening you can't even begin to imagine how he's going to get through the next moment let alone how he's going to actually emerge victorious.

Mel Gibson takes you to a world of such beauty and horror that you've seen thin images of in National Geographic and you know about but which you've never actually seen. It's one thing hearing a quiet narrator on a PBS show point to the top of a Mayan pyramid and tell you about the human sacrifices and it's quite another to see Gibson's cinematic vision of that world. You've never seen it in a movie, you've never seen it anywhere. The lack of recognizable actors helps create a raw naked vitality which doesn't allow your mind to lose the illusion of  this world.

The movie is intense and bloody as advertised but not gratuitously so. I've seen movies with far more violence praised by the same folks bemoaning this movie. Which brings me to the reviews by the NY Times reviewer and so many others online which are to my mind biased and colored by intense dislike for Mel Gibson himself.  That really reflects more on the ability of the reviewer than of the movie. If you're reading this then I assume you can make up your own mind. If you don't like Mel Gibson and don't want to see anything that he does that's fine. If you want to see a outstanding movie, a movie that is adult fare - and you understand that, this movie will not let you down. I'm going to go see it again myself.