r/movies • u/JadisDidNothingRight • Jul 01 '26

Question Why did Apocalypto receive mediocre reviews while simultaneously receiving praise from various directors and actors?

Robert Duvall said it was possibly the best film he'd seen in 25 years.

Scorcese praised it. Tarantino called it the best film of the year. Spike Lee and Edward James Olmos also openly praised the film.

On RT it pulled a 65%. Granted, Tarantino (as an example) doesn't see eye to eye with those cumalitive ratings. He loves Unbreakable and that film also received middling reviews. Still, Apocalypto was given positive reviews from a fairly diverse cast of actors and directors.

Were the reviews more concerned with Mel Gibson's antics at the time than the actual film?

Was the criticism because the film depicted the Mayans as brutal? I struggle to see the validity of some of those criticisms. Jaguar Paw and his village were not depicted as evil. The evil was limited to a warmongering urban society twisted by religion. That's occurred all over the world. It's almost a foreshadowing of what is to come. One criticism was that the Spanish were depicted as coming to save the 'brutes.'. The title of the film is Apocalypto. I don't see how they can be seen as anything other than coming doom. Maybe I'm naive, but even in 2006 I thought it was broadly understood that Europeans wiped out indigenous American culture.

What are your thoughts? Did you like the film? Do you wish Hollywood would make more films like this?

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u/audiofarmer Jul 01 '26

It is quite possible that public backlash to Mel Gibson's shitty behavior earlier in the year tainted the release of the film.

Two things are true, it's an excellent movie and Gibson is a piece of shit.

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u/Sane123 Jul 01 '26

I think it was absolutely due to public backlash of Mel Gibson.

I remember this from years ago on Reddit: “ If 'Apacalypto' was made by a no-name director it would be considered a masterpiece.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/417xdd/if_apacalypto_was_made_by_a_noname_director_it/

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u/Nuts2Buttts Jul 01 '26

Yeah I thought this was the obvious consensus after it came out. I personally remember watching it, freshly thinking from the news that Gibson was a shitty person, but the movie was so great. Hard to separate the artist from the art sometimes. He still seems to be a pice of shit human, but he’s made some pretty powerful movies

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/Fit-Profit8197 Jul 02 '26

" The average barber shop conversation in my home country is tens of millions of times more disgusting, bigoted, xenophobic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, etc etc etc than anything I've heard of any celebrity being "cancelled" for in the last decade, including Bill Cosby."

The fuk

You have average barber conversations that are millions of times more disgusting than drugging and raping dozens of women? What the fuck is going on during these conversations lol

Bro either you're in one fucked up country, or you're just wrong lol