Starring Maurice Jones-Drew as Jaguar Paw.Tonight you get a twofer, which means you'll also read my reaction to the movie Apocalypto, brought to you by Starz! On Demand. The HEAVY plot discussion below means I must now provide a **Spoiler Warning**
Overall I loved this movie. It had wilderness survival, which is why I love Man Vs. Wild. It had gruesome over the top blood spurting deaths, which is why I love Dawn Of The Dead. It had historical significance, which is why I love Saving Private Ryan.
For the first 125 minutes of this 130 minute film, this movie is rocking the shit. It tells a cool little backstory of the protagonist and his tribe, showing you how quaintly, yet viciously, they live. Then all of the sudden, people who look exactly like the guys you're supposed to be cheering for show up and burn shit down and start lopping off heads. The next hour is a brutal trip into the life of a hostage ultimately being led to the slaughter. When they arrive at their destination, a giant Mayan temple, they are lined up for a human sacrifice. The main character, Jaguar Paw, is about to get the axe when all of the sudden, a solar eclipse happens!!
I think to myself..."HA!! That's neat! I know that I've heard tales of ancient tribes being completely confounded at the workings of eclipses! What a clever way for our hero to escape certain death!". Such a gimmick works (READ THIS CAREFULLY, MOVIE EXECS) one time and one time only in a film. After that, it's stupid.
The next hour or so is basically a glorified snuff film, as we follow Jaguar Paw through the jungle as savages hunt him down. They can't catch him, he kills them off one by one, blah blah blah, you've seen this in every movie ever made starring a WWE wrestler. But anyway, it's at least compelling how they did it. It's one thing to watch the main character shoot his pursuers with an AK47, it's a totally different experience watching him off them with poisoned toads, boar traps, and panther maulings. Very cool stuff.
So now we're down to just Jaguar Paw and two dudes chasing him. He makes it to the shore and it looks like he's out of gas. His captors get ready to do him in, but what happens??? THE EFFING SPANIARDS SHOW UP.
I'll repeat this, since it's stupidity cannot possibly be understated.
THE SPANISH CHOOSE THE SECOND MOST CLIMACTIC MOMENT IN THIS YOUNG MAN'S LIFE TO DISCOVER THE NEW WORLD. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THE MOST CLIMACTIC MOMENT IN THIS YOUNG MAN'S LIFE HAPPENED JUST HOURS EARLIER, WHEN A SOLAR ECLIPSE WAS THE ONLY REASON HE WAS SPARED FROM CERTAIN DEATH.
Now, a quick Wikipedia check says that total solar eclipses only happen on any one spot on earth approximately every 370 years. So not only did one of this guy's two closest encounters with death happen on a precise minute out of a possible 194,472,000 (yes I just did that math), but the other one happened during the ONLY hour or so in human history that Europeans succesfully emigrated to the Yucatan Peninsula for the first time.
Lazy, lazy ending. Other than that, great movie. B+.
6 comments:
Good job Ebert! I think you hit the nail on the head in your movie review! I saw it on the big screen a while back, and I was captivated until the very end. I thought the Spaniards-to-the-rescue was a little far-fetched as well. Heck, I think an alien spaceship landing on the beach and capturing the final 2 pursuers of Jaguar Paw would be just as realistic. But all in all it was a great flick.
However, Jon, I'd be interested to know what your fincy thought of the movie, because Diane absolutely HATED it! Apparently she doesn't like vivid displays of gory murder, torture, and desecration of women...which I thought were the 3 pillars of modern film. I think her biggest regret in our 4+ year relationship is that she let me choose the movie that day. A few weeks ago a commercial came on for Apocalypto on DVD, and I thought DK was seriously going to walk out the door...she had so much ANGER.
Can you just give Romo his league leading 5th Chumley award and be done with it?
Fincy didn't watch it. She generally skips on anything longer than 2 hours because her attention span craps out.
However, if she had watched it, I'm pretty sure she would have liked it. She doesn't really care if a movie is super violent as long as an alien or a zombie isn't the culprit. She likes her violence to be human-on-human style.
DK wouldn't even go see American Gangster with me because she heard there was explicit Gore (and we aren't talking Frank without pants, Niners fans). I mean come on, DK's a nurse who sees blood spurting all over the walls of a hospital every day... and this only Hollywood!
Let's get that playoff preview up on the site eh!
Dave,
I'll go see American Gangster with you!!
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