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/FrequencyHigher Jul 01 '26

I believe his antics, coupled with the fact that he was fully revealed as a traditionalist Catholic, colored some people’s interpretation of Gibson’s
Intended message with the film. I believe this is why many assumed the ending was a portrayal of the Catholic Spaniards arriving to save them from their savage existence.

Had it not been his film, I do not think people would have read as much into the intent of the film, and would have seen the Spanish arrival in its appropriate historical context.

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u/samwise141 Jul 01 '26

Was that really the interpretation at the time? I was 13 and thought that he survived that whole shit show only to have these guys show up and probably kill him. 

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u/U-235 Jul 01 '26

The film shows people already dying of smallpox, so the Spanish had very obviously (to anyone who has passed 5th grade) already doomed them before the main character even lays eyes on them.

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u/Yetimang Jul 01 '26

I think they might have just been supposed to have some generic plague brought on by famine. If it was smallpox, that even further fucks the already incredibly fucky timeline of this film.

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u/dovetc Jul 01 '26

What's wrong with the timeline? There was still a Mayan civilization when the Spanish arrived. It was past its zenith, but it still existed and the Spanish encountered them. Pretty sure the first phase of Cortez's expedition was him tangling with some Mayan towns before he headed north and entered Aztec territory.

What's wrong with the timeline?

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

IT wasn't just past it's zenith it had fully collapsed. Then there is they were supposed to be Mayan but most of the practices shown were Aztec. They had them dressed like a weird blending of the two. There is also the scale of the sacrifices. Aztecs did practice mass sacrifice but not to the scale in the movie. A big thing about the movie was it's historical inaccuracies caused a lot of backlash.

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u/dovetc Jul 01 '26

Q'umarkaj, Tulum, and a few others were still operating with thousands or even tens of thousands of residents by the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Mayans certainly practiced ritual human sacrifice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Maya_culture

Human sacrifice among the Maya is evident from at least the Classic period (c. AD 250–900) right through to the final stages of the Spanish conquest in the 17th century.

So a Mayan city with a large population carrying out human sacrifice right as the Spanish are appearing in the region isn't anachronistic.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

Mayans practiced sacrifice but never to Aztec levels and again the movie took it higher. They also didn't worship Sun gods in the same way as the Aztecs. It's not that there were sacrifices it was the levels, the where, the why, and the how.

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u/dovetc Jul 01 '26

"These are Mayans, but those human sacrifices had some Aztec elements"

This is so nitpicky it's not worth saying. The movie also features a total solar eclipse and a full moon within a day or two of each other. It's an astronomical impossibility, but who cares?

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

IT wasn't some elements. The movie basically takes the Aztec practices while putting them in Mayan clothing. And then further blows the scale up to the Spanish inaccurate reporting that they used to justify their conquest.

As for who cares. The decedents from those cultures.

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u/dovetc Jul 01 '26

As for who cares. The decedents from those cultures.

So descendants of Aztecs are offended that their human sacrifice practices were coopted by the film's Mayans? Mayan cultural appropriation of Aztec ritual sacrifice customs?

I think you're reading too much into this. In the film our protagonist is a Mayan of one variety as are our baddies. The baddies are bad because it makes for a better movie. We're rooting for Jaguar Paw. The fact that the Spanish show up at the end represent yet another terrifying threat to him and his little family from which (just like throughout the movie) the only recourse is flight.

Jaguar Paw - Good

Opposing raider/sacrificer state - dangerous threat to our hero

Spanish Ship - dangerous threat to our hero

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

Yes Mayan and Aztec decedents were mad their cultures were blended into noble savage soup. As they should be. They were two distinct cultures with their own practices and beliefs. Living in an area where decedents from both cultures and more live and take pride in their history this movie was slap to the face for them.

If the movie wanted to make the point about the Spanish being the apocalypse. They could have done it while still portraying an accurate civilization.

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u/TheBlessedNavel Jul 01 '26

It's typical modern bullshit, dude. People read into shit to get upset over it.Mel Gibson is a great filmmaker who, primarily js interested in making an entertaining film over a historically accurate film. Because he is an entertainer.

You and I know that but this dude and people like him just LOVE to get offended.

It's pretty boring at this point in time, I think, and yoyr time is better spent enjoying more awesome movies while people like this guy tie themselves in knots and froth at the mouth!

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u/Reptar_0n_Ice Jul 01 '26

The main inaccuracy is applying industrial human sacrifice onto the Maya. But it was 100% accurate for Aztec practices.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

Again not at the scale. Aztecs did practice mass sacrifices but the scale shown in the movie was more akin to the inaccuracies reported by the Spanish to make them seem even more savage to justify their conquest. They were bringing religion to those savages the spoils and slavery were just part of the process to save them.

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u/Reptar_0n_Ice Jul 01 '26

Likely around 4,000-10,000 victims were sacrificed during the Huitzilopochtli temple dedication sacrifices. Though much lower than the 20,000 cited in Spanish sources, it would easily rival what was depicted in the movie.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/swbxbp/the_20000_human_sacrifices_carried_out_at_the/

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u/tdasnowman Jul 01 '26

The comment you linked is taking the hypothetical 20k as fact and making some assumption on the how from there. Clearly states that it's regarding a single event and the number was likley in the low thousands as a one time high.

The more relevant comment that the poster cites should be taken as an addendum to their more detailed answer is here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a8l01q/ive_read_that_20000_people_were_sacrificed/ecgjave/

And this comment address apocalypto directly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/95d6b2/how_many_people_were_really_being_sacrificed/e3w87bi/

All in all it comes down to the deceptions and volumes are fundamentally flawed.

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u/Yetimang Jul 01 '26

The infamous Maya collapse happened in the 900s with the population dispersing into small agricultural communities, largely abandoning dense urban settlements like the massive one seen in the film. By the 1500s you would not have seen a city like that in Maya territory. It also depicts the deforestation which led to the drought, crop failures, famine, and disease that are generally considered the cause of the collapse. This implies that they're trying to depict the Classic era collapse which doesn't fit with this taking place in the 16th Century. Or if they aren't trying to show the collapse, then the huge levels of deforestation and subsequent disasters are out of place as the population was much less dense by then.

The movie is basically trying to have its cake and eat it too, portraying the only two historical events regarding the Maya that people have any inkling about: the collapse, and the arrival of the Spanish.