Apocalypto

went to see Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, a contender for most baffling title ever. It was a pretty good film, though it was very much a typical cheesy Hollywood film dressed up in arthouse clothing. The script was pure popcorn entertainment, from swift exposition and character development to friends’ noble sacrifices, to contrived coincidences allowing escape, to people dying in exact order of character importance. And then a deus ex machina that made me wonder if it was a reference to a certain William Golding novel. Only the fact that it wasn’t in English made it in any way artsy. When I mentioned this to Tom, he said, ‘Mmm, I hadn’t thought of it, but now you mention it, it was actually very like The Running Man.’ I had actually thought in parts it was more like Home Alone in the Jungle. With more blood.

I’ve read the anthropologist bemoaning the film’s great lack of authenticity. I don’t care, because unlike The Passion of the Christ, I wasn’t moved because it felt so real. I was moved because it was simple, obvious Hollywood fun, and it’s a shame that it’s not being marketed that way, because it’s not artistic at all. It is, however, beautifully shot, finding the epic in dense foliage and simple huts just as much as in ziggurats and weathered, tattooed faces. Shame about the jaguar glove puppet, though.

And of course, in true Hollywood style, the protagonist is prettier than anyone else, a simmering Ronaldinho, and can get an arrow through the torso and after a few minutes start running once again like…well, a trained footballer.

I’d recommend seeing Apocalypto, not because it’s gritty or accurate – though it is brutally violent – because it’s a fun, simple film that’s good, solid entertainment.