I was surprised at the number of strong reviews for this film...it contains two errors that rendered it ridiculous for me.
First of all, the film is full of "deus ex machina" moments, like most adventure movies, where the hero is saved in the nick of time, but I've always found them ridiculous and uncomfortable. I like seeing people get by on their wits and skills, not some silly coincidence. And two of them in this film are doozies.
First, the hero is about to be sacrificed when he is saved by an eclipse of the sun, which terrifies the Mayans. This is an old yarn in European-meets-savage stories going back hundreds of years. It is especially galling when used against the Mayans, who at their peak could have predicted an eclipse better than any European culture.
Second, the hero is again saved when his last two pursuers are stunned into silence, and let him go (even though he has killed several of their friends) by the sight of Spanish ships on the horizon. The Spanish did not arrive in Mesoamerica until several hundred years after the Mayan empires where memories, and they did not explore the Yucatan until many years after they had successfully conquered the Aztecs.
The film is fascinating to look at, but these kinds of errors (and many others which seem to conflate the Mayans with the later Aztec Empire) make it a one-screening film for me. A more interesting film along similar lines is the Mexican "Cabeza de Vaca", which strives to tell a true story with some accuracy about the Mesoamericans.
First of all, the film is full of "deus ex machina" moments, like most adventure movies, where the hero is saved in the nick of time, but I've always found them ridiculous and uncomfortable. I like seeing people get by on their wits and skills, not some silly coincidence. And two of them in this film are doozies.
First, the hero is about to be sacrificed when he is saved by an eclipse of the sun, which terrifies the Mayans. This is an old yarn in European-meets-savage stories going back hundreds of years. It is especially galling when used against the Mayans, who at their peak could have predicted an eclipse better than any European culture.
Second, the hero is again saved when his last two pursuers are stunned into silence, and let him go (even though he has killed several of their friends) by the sight of Spanish ships on the horizon. The Spanish did not arrive in Mesoamerica until several hundred years after the Mayan empires where memories, and they did not explore the Yucatan until many years after they had successfully conquered the Aztecs.
The film is fascinating to look at, but these kinds of errors (and many others which seem to conflate the Mayans with the later Aztec Empire) make it a one-screening film for me. A more interesting film along similar lines is the Mexican "Cabeza de Vaca", which strives to tell a true story with some accuracy about the Mesoamericans.