Apocalypto: Conan plus Rambo Equals Awesome

I've been neglecting the T&B of late. Work and Life in general has taken up a lot of time, and I've done a TON of reading (like nine novels since my last post). I'll have to put up some book recommendations soon, but in the meantime...

I was so prepared to hate this movie. I didn't see Passion, and never intend to. I've got multiple issues with it, and actually none of them are personally religious in nature. Whatever, moving on. I figured Apocalypto would be much of the same, but a number of reliable sources (including The Evil DM's recent blog post) told me I should put my fears aside and watch it anyways. How right they were.

I won't write a review of the movie really - go Wiki it if you want that. What I will say is that this was a great action movie. The last half of it is one long, suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase sequence through the jungle, and it is intense as hell. While watching it, I was getting all sorts of other-movie vibes, namely Conan the Barbarian and First Blood, both of which are in my Top 10 Awesome Movies list. There's a scene early on in the film that is VERY reminiscent of an early scene in Conan, and there are several other spots where I was getting a similar vibe. I also pick up on some great flashbacks to Last of the Mohicans and Predator, also great movies in my mind.

So anyhow, I won't ramble on much more about it. It's a great spectacle, it's a beautiful, beautiful movie, the bad guys are amazing, and it's got some intense violence. Sometimes its even a little hard to watch, but ultimately this movie surprised the hell out of me, and it's worth looking into.