Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Pulsates with the Breath of Life

Apocalypto is just as edgy as the other two monumental filmmaking achievements by Mel Gibson, Braveheart and The Passion of The Christ.

In authentic macho-Gibson fashion, there is so much honesty in his presentation of mayhem, anarchism, dislimbment and raw carnage you are sure to come out of the movie-house unnerved and ready to club the first human in sight. I am no Catholic but just thinking of the Roman soldiers bludgeoning a good guy like J still gives me a start.

Too much humanity as well you would sing out hallelujah there are morons and people with laughing sickness to neutralize the sickening aspects of being too human.

With Apocalypto, Gibson prods us on to revisit a Mayan tribe deep in the Amazon jungles whose village was pillaged by warriors of the queen. As supplies were running out fast, these killing machines had to procure more heads to hack off as sacrifices to the god of harvest.

All men were captured and then brought to the apex of Temple of the Sun where the head-rolling ritual was performed. From the prophetic pariah cast out in the fringes of the city, you could tell a civilization was at the brink of disintegration.

Then something I just couldn't bear not pulling my hair on.

There went into it so much chasing you can't help thinking of the skunk and the pilot pulling off the same scene smack right in the middle of the Kalahari Desert in "The Gods Must Be Crazy 2". Throw in the brambles, the thick foliage, Rambo makeup on the faces of the Mayan warriors and tribesmen in G-strings you would think one is a remake with just a minor change in location.

Then there is the feeling of watching a McGyver rerun with the incidental survival tips spliced here and there. One minute you discover that you could actually shoo away swarms of poisonous bees by soaking your body in sticky bog, or do surgical stitches with giant ant pincers to close a gaping wound and, then deliver a healthy baby in a flooded dugout in another.

Generally the movie should scare us off the edge of our seats. I think it did quite well. The visuals alone are so strong - overall color motif set against green against red against black.

Psychologically speaking, the three basic colors should make a delectable catastrophic concoction that is attention-grabbing to man's basic sense of danger. Or simply appealing to the barbaric instincts of our primeval selves still stuck somewhere deep in our civilized makeup.

Only one should not watch too much NatGeo docus to truly enjoy a suspenseful Hollywood shtick called Apocalypto.