Or "Apocalypto", as Mr. Mel Gibson probably thinks it should be called. At least that's what's written on the posters of the film. I was a bit hesitant to go to the cinema see this film, but I swallowed by skepticism and went to see it. According to the publicity and some critics, it was "Mel Gibson looking into the end of the Aztec civilisation, analysing the reasons that had corrupted their society from the inside, making it prone to crumble at the arrival of the Spanish 'conquistadores'". Just in case some of the people that go to the cinema to watch it had not heard that description of the film, an introductory quote reminds you that that is the aim of the film. Or that is the pretension. On top of that, the film had been filmed in some (would be) indigenous language.
After all that you mostly expect a profound socio-historical analysis, may be almost documentary-like, about the last years of the Aztec Empire. Instead, you find yourself in front of the silliest story, where a bunch of merry tribespeople are massacred by another more violent tribe, and the survivors taken to be sold as slaves or to be used as human sacrifices to the gods. By the most abused of reasons (an infinitely opportune eclipse, no less), our hero and a few of his chums are spared from dieing at the sacrifice altar, but become game for their captors violent games. Predictably, our hero manages to escape, and although he has nos been fed in days and he is badly wounded, he manages to kill almost a dozen of the same warriors that he didn't manage to defeat on a one-to-one fight when he was fully rested and fed at the beginning of the film. And he does so, just in time to see the 'conquistadores' landing on the beach and to rescue his wife, who has just had a baby while she was hidden/trapped in a pit in the jungle.
The film is in my opinion: shallow, predictable, topic and on top of all that, pretentious. Don't waste your time. I'm sure there's some other film you will enjoy more, or even you could watch telie and you would waste your time less.
That is, the 'Caveau des Oubliettes', in the Latin Quarter of Paris. This used to be our usual haunt for Friday and Saturday evenings, but as sometimes happens, at some point we had stopped going and now it was may be over half a year since last time.