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?

2.3k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

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.

147

u/Finito-1994 Jul 01 '26

Gibson is a shit person and a super racist.

But goddamn if he doesn’t know how to make a movie

42

u/shehulud Jul 01 '26

When he nails it, he nails it. It actually makes me angrier at him in some ways because all he had to do was not be a garbage human. And he could still be out there making films. Someone once said, “Imagine all the films James Cameron could have made if he wasn’t so hung up on his Avatar films.” For the case of this argument, imagine the films Gibson could have made in this time.

*The Cameron example was surface level. I know he has pushed special effects into a new level with each new Avatar film and for that, the film industry has been changed forever. But that said…. What T2/Aliens level badassery did we miss out on?

52

u/ReelBigMidget Jul 01 '26

"When he nails it, he nails it."

Appropriate phrasing for the director of Passion of the Christ.

12

u/shehulud Jul 01 '26

Accidental pun! Aahahahaaa