Visually stunning Apocalypto falls flat in plot

There is no crucifixion in Apocalypto. And, despite the ardent wishes of publicist stunt junkies, Mel Gibson does not make an appearance. Oh, and he never mentions God. At least not a monotheistic one.

Instead he makes a movie that can be cut in half. The first houris an epic -- long shots of the jungle canopy, bombastic music,overwhelming prettiness in each shot -- and the second hour is a musicvideo without a pop song -- frenetic, sped-up-then-slowed-down actionthat makes all those pretty scenes blur into adrenaline.

The plot, sketched out by Gibson and a studio pal, isformulaic -- Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), husband from a peacefultribe, is taken from his wife and child by the domineering Maya andmust fight to reunite with them -- and Gibson seems to know it, asinstead of characters we have images. His cinematographer Dean Semler,an Oscar-winner for Dances With Wolves, makes ample use of hisvast jungle canvas, creating atmosphere and emotion where the scriptfalls flat by seamlessly blending actor and scenery -- the hunters ofJaguar Paw's tribe, some indigenous actors, some not, inhabit theirlandscape with a grace due entirely to Semler's portrait-quality shots.The images truly come into their own when the captured Jaguar Paw,strung together with his fellow villagers by a raiding party, aremarched into the center of a Mayan city, where the sheer color, energyand light call to mind the studio epics of a time when Hollywoodregularly hired thousands of extras a day, as in films like Lawrence of Arabia or even Cleopatra.News reports say that Gibson did the same, hiring upward of 1,000extras for some of the Mayan scenes, and the results are refreshinglyfree of computer animation, as 1,000 or more real, living people goabout their business on screen -- people who, in scenes that remind youthat the past is never dead, look stunningly like the paintings andsculptures that remain from the Mayan period.

Gibson's Goya-esque inability to turn away from the seductiveblossoming of crimson blood or slithery organs or wet, snapping bones-- the same lack of restraint that made some irreverent critics call The Passion areligious snuff film -- serves him well here in the pre-Colombian worldof the jungles surrounding what is today Veracruz in coastal Mexico.Though the spurting, slopping, sluicing and shunting of blood and fluidbecomes almost too much -- and then continues to the point ofover-saturation. It serves its purpose in creating a world where peoplekill each other in brutal and painful ways, and where death isconfronted daily and accepted as a natural and expected chapter inlife.

For all its willingness to drag its audience through blood and mud and sweat in its fast-paced final hour, Apocalypto alsodoesn't give them much credit. While the Mayans remain some of the moreinscrutable peoples of pre-Colombian history -- astronomers andmathematicians while also warriors and conquerors -- Gibson creates anangry, reactionary, contorted, frightening society where the mainmotivation of life is to slake a thirst for blood through rape,sacrifice and death. The simplified black-and-white universe Gibsoncreates, where Jaguar Paw and his people represent nobility and peaceand the Mayan's duplicity and sin could be called biblical in its ownway, but mostly it just seems ignorant. The Mayan raiding party becomesa sneering, sadistic group of slave traders who bear a resemblance tothe Orcs of the Lord of the Rings series -- grinning at death,reveling in violence -- and the Mayan city teems with pestilence-riddenslaves, fat, gorging noblewomen and emaciated, sharp-teethedworshippers, all overseen by an evangelical minister-cum-temple leaderwho works up the crowd into slavering devotion before cutting outanother man's heart.

Gibson claims that Apocalypto is allegorical, that theMayans, like the U.S., are engaged in futile efforts to shore up theirdying empire, only instead of cutting out the hearts of slaves, theU.S. is sending soldiers to Iraq. The connection is tenuous, at best,but at least it gives this confusing film a message, which is betterthan Gibson seems to be able to do during its whole runtime.