For Mel Gibson, director, too much is only the beginning. Gratuitous cruelty was a feature of his historical actioner Braveheart and the theological horror hit, Passion of the Christ. This time he visits 16^th century Mayan forests to deliver a thinly veiled chase pic where the message is, as always, subservient to violence directed with pornographic glee. As Sandra Hall noted, Apocalypto subs as a not-so-quick manual on 1001 ways to kill. The thin story concerns tribesman Jaguar Paw who lives a peaceful existence deep in the rainforests of (now) Central America. Peaceful that is unless you’re a tapir, one of which is the first victim in what becomes two and a half brutal hours of slaughter dressed as a morality tale. His village is raided by distant slavers who need human sacrifices for an angry god. Jaguar Paw is taken, offered, escapes and heads home to save his abandoned wife and child. Hard on his heels are some very scary men with equally scary methods.

As the adventure hardens and blood-soaked scenes piles up, Gibson makes a conciliatory nod to grander themes; an eco-message about pillaged land that has no more to give foremost among them. Supporting the notion is sumptuous cinematography whose elegance is a triumph of circumstance. Expansive scenes atop a Mayan temple are truly spectacular. Yet these achievements can’t compensate for the orgy of violence that is Apocalypto. Despite moments of brilliance, purpose and theme are drowned in an unrelenting blood-bath that renders Gibson’s work, like Passion of the Christ before it, faintly ridiculous. It certainly raises big questions about the director’s purpose, and he has only himself to blame for that.

// COLIN FRASER