So, has anyone actually seen Apocalypto?

I saw the preview, and whispered to the friend I was with, "That looks like it'll either be good, or hilariously bad. Normally I'd go see it with you to either enjoy or MST3K, but I've decided that Mel Gibson isn't getting any more of this Jew's money."

"Download it," he suggested.

However, it sounds like it'll be too violent for me, even blurrily and illegally downloaded. (I've seen neither Passion of Christ, nor Braveheart, both of which I heard were extremely violent. I have an allergy to Biblical stories. Nothing against Christianity! They just bore me. I haven't even seen The Last Temptation of Christ, despite the participation of both Martin Scorsese and Harvey Keitel. The other one, eh, I think I'd recently seen a bunch of horrible historical movies because I wanted to check out the battle scenes, and finally decided that even giant flaming balls of twine were not enough of a reward to make sitting through overall badness worthwhile. (I realize that this sounds odd given what I just wrote about violence. I like battle scenes. I don't like long and graphic torture and mutilation scenes.))

But I did look up some reviews of Apocalypto. (A title which really needs an exclamation point or three.) It got some interesting ones:

Negative: I fully intended to write a serious review of "Apocalypto," right up to the point where a 4-year-old boy closes his leg wound with the pincers of live fire ants.

Positive: If you have the stomach for it, though -- or if you like keeping in touch with the works of one of our wealthier outsider artists and/or don't mind funding an anti-Semite -- "Apocalypto" should be seen.

Perplexed: It would be inappropriate and probably inaccurate for any critic to pronounce on the mental health of a filmmaker based on his movie. Yet no description of "Apocalypto" can even begin, much less be complete, without noting -- say, in a colloquial, nonclinical, anecdotal sort of way -- that it seems like something made by a crazy person.

So, has anyone actually seen Apocalypto?

I saw the preview, and whispered to the friend I was with, "That looks like it'll either be good, or hilariously bad. Normally I'd go see it with you to either enjoy or MST3K, but I've decided that Mel Gibson isn't getting any more of this Jew's money."

"Download it," he suggested.

However, it sounds like it'll be too violent for me, even blurrily and illegally downloaded. (I've seen neither Passion of Christ, nor Braveheart, both of which I heard were extremely violent. I have an allergy to Biblical stories. Nothing against Christianity! They just bore me. I haven't even seen The Last Temptation of Christ, despite the participation of both Martin Scorsese and Harvey Keitel. The other one, eh, I think I'd recently seen a bunch of horrible historical movies because I wanted to check out the battle scenes, and finally decided that even giant flaming balls of twine were not enough of a reward to make sitting through overall badness worthwhile. (I realize that this sounds odd given what I just wrote about violence. I like battle scenes. I don't like long and graphic torture and mutilation scenes.))

But I did look up some reviews of Apocalypto. (A title which really needs an exclamation point or three.) It got some interesting ones:

Negative: I fully intended to write a serious review of "Apocalypto," right up to the point where a 4-year-old boy closes his leg wound with the pincers of live fire ants.

Positive: If you have the stomach for it, though -- or if you like keeping in touch with the works of one of our wealthier outsider artists and/or don't mind funding an anti-Semite -- "Apocalypto" should be seen.

Perplexed: It would be inappropriate and probably inaccurate for any critic to pronounce on the mental health of a filmmaker based on his movie. Yet no description of "Apocalypto" can even begin, much less be complete, without noting -- say, in a colloquial, nonclinical, anecdotal sort of way -- that it seems like something made by a crazy person.