YMMV / Apocalypto

• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • Many aspects of the depiction of Mayan civilization were criticized as unrealistic, but some have basis in fact, such as the Maya did practice human sacrifice (only that the movie gets nuances and quantity wrong, conflating them with the Aztecs), did wear blue body paint, and their civilization still existed when the Spaniards arrived.
  • The "black panther" was criticized as Misplaced Wildlife, in reality like leopards, jaguars are known to produce melanistic (aka: black furred) specimens too.
• Broken Base: This is either a beautifully designed movie with great action or a poor attempt at historical drama.
• Complete Monster: All of the Maya warriors are a particularly nasty lot, but none stand out so much as Middle-Eye, the vicious Dragon to the lead hunter Zero Wolf. One of their best hunters and fighters, Middle-Eye is also the only rapist, who takes one of the women of a conquered village into a hut to violate her, and kills her after, as her husband Blunt struggles futilely to save her. When Jaguar Paw nearly kills Middle-Eye in a fight, Middle-Eye vengefully slits his father's throat in front of him and names Jaguar Paw 'Almost' in response. When the new captives are being marched back to the capital city, Middle-Eye at one point decides to lighten the load by throwing an exhausted slave to his death. Middle-eye stands above his fellow slave hunters in depravity and the others consider him sick.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The name of the city where the slaves are taken is never identified in the film, but an expert on things Mayan would guess that it is probably Copán, which was near the border between Guatemala and Honduras. Like the city depicted, Copán was within walking (or, in this case, running) distance of both the Caribbean Sea and a major river.
  • The ending of the movie manages to encapsulate the Spanish Conquest of America in a single scene: natives fleeing from other natives' imperialism run into the Spaniards arriving to assimilate the New World into their own empire. A few years after the film's events, conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro would be taking over the land with armies 95% composed by native tribes seeking revenge, many of them not unlike Jaguar Paw's.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Almost literally, as the film was a hit in Mexico despite all the historical licenses, the usual Mayincatec, and the overemphasis on the Mesoamerican cultures' bloodthirst. Aside from the big budget and artistic direction, the applicability of the final scene also helped to make the movie appeal to Mexicans of all political stances: Indigenistas loved it because it portrayed the power and glory of the Mayan civilization before the Spaniards dismantled it, while Hispanistas loved it too because it was an excellent showcase of all the indigenous brutality and infighting the Spanish Empire curbed.
• Heartwarming Moments: Blunt's mother-in-law constantly berates and humiliates him, but tries to comfort him when he is captured.
• It Was His Sled: The Prophecy Twist of the Spaniards setting foot on American soil and bringing the real apocalypse is the first thing you'd probably know about this film.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Jaguar Paw is Ronaldinho.^note Many viewers commented on Jaguar Paw's actor Rudy Youngblood being a lookalike of Ronaldinho, so it's common to see comments joking that the film actually stars Ronaldinho or that Jaguar Paw somehow jumped forward to present time and became a soccer player after the film's events.
  • My ancestors meeting my ancestors.^note The inevitable joke by many Mexican viewers, usual in media set during the conquest, for the scene where the natives run into the Spaniards. Ironically, although most modern Mexicans do have both Spanish and native blood, the lands of the ancient Mayans have some of the strongest presence of pureblood natives in Mexico today (they even identify as Maya and often have Mayan languages as their primary language), meaning the meme is less true in this case.
• Misaimed Fandom: Gibson stated he just wanted to portray how empires and civilizations rise and fall, if anything only making a comparison with 20th century United States; all the subsequent debate about what position the film stood on about imperialism, colonialism, religion, freedom and et caetera was not what he aimed for. Notably, people of all the sides and stances have adopted the film as an example of their points.
• Moment of Awesome: Jaguar Paw's "rebirth" from the mud and its immediate aftermath.
• Moral Event Horizon: Zero Wolf, Middle Eye and the other slavers collectively cross the horizon during the attack on the village and the grueling march to the Mayan city. The one that takes the cake must be Middle Eye gloating and killing Flint Sky in front of his son Jaguar Paw, simply for the crime of being Jaguar Paw's father (and for stopping Middle Eye's rape of a girl earlier on).
• Nightmare Fuel: THE WHOLE MOVIE.
  • The refugees are kind of creepy when they appear. Then Jaguar Paw has his eerie prophetic dream which features one of the refugees standing before him, beating heart still in hand, eyes bulging widely, panting desperately, his heart beating faster and faster until it's thundering loudly. Then he manages to gasp out one word: "Run!"
  • The raid sequence, which features children being slaughtered and women raped.
  • The scene of the decaying Mayan civilisation and the desperate people thereof.
  • The sacrifices. Nothing more needs to be said.
  • The Downer Ending. Jaguar Paw gets to reunite with his family, and his wife delivers an healthy babe, but Spaniards have just set foot on their land, and the world as they knew it is doomed to end.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The creepy little girl who prophesies the rest of the film, including the end of Mayan civilization itself.
  • The high priest, who is easily the hammiest character in the film and responsible for one of the goriest scenes of human sacrifice you're ever likely to see.
  • The jaguar that brutally kills one of the pursuers after Jaguar Paw leads it right into the hunting party.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film was released six months after director Gibson's 2006 DUI arrest and sexist/antisemitic tirade, which had a big impact on how the film was received.
• Special Effect Failure: The black jaguar is a very obvious puppet when it gets killed by the slavers. Also between shots, it changes from looking like a black leopard to a black jaguar (you can tell because black leopards have bigger eyes and smaller heads).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Most of the film's artistic licenses come from giving the Mayans a set of cultural traits that were actually more typical of the Aztecs, like imperialism and mass human sacrifices. By this point, logically, one wonders if it would have not been better simply making a film about the Aztecs themselves. Gibson preemptively answered to this, though, stating he wanted to portray the decadence of a civilization, which would have not been possible with the Aztec empire, as the latter was in its main splendour when the Spanish and their native allies (and the epidemics unwittingly brought by the Spanish) destroyed it.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Many political interpretations have been weaved about the film. As a proof that reality is always weirder, Gibson has revealed the film's portrayal of the Mayan decadence is an allegory of the Bush Administration of all things.
• The Woobie: Blunt, being the object of cruel pranks and mockery from his fellow villagers while being constantly insulted by his wife's mother for being unable to have children. Then, when the Holcanes arrive, Blunt bravely fights back but gets overpowered... and has to watch his wife being raped and killed in front of him by Middle Eye. It becomes a Tear Jerker when Blunt and the other men are marched off to be sacrificed, and his wife's mother touches his face as if to comfort him... and his later Heroic Sacrifice to give Jaguar Paw a chance to escape.

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