The first 95 minutes or so -- up to the eclipse -- is possibly the best movie to date in 2006. It's a voyage of discovery through a virgin world of alien but understandable sensations and it culminates in an arrival at a city of pyramids which constitutes one of the recent cinema's great set pieces. Bizarre, spectacular, hypnotic, fully realized -- like landing on an alien planet of savage, fascinating beauty. After the eclipse, however, the movie settles into a conventional "chase" mode which, though interesting, can't compare to the first 95 minutes. The ending disappoints in that it introduces an outside element to this previously enclosed world, and the ending can't resolve the movie's basic dilemma: how can it be both the story of a civilization's decline and also the story of a man's personal triumph.<br /><br />The subtitles actually help in that lines which might have sounded silly or stilted when spoken in English somehow "work" when condensed to printed form. (Though one subtitle stumbles with a piece of discordant slang.) These subtitles also help create a distance between the modern audience and the lost world of the past being shown on the screen. And words, either spoken or subtitled, often aren't needed here because the cast has great faces and can use these faces to convey both information and emotion.<br /><br />Though not a fan of "The Passion of the Christ" and though feeling that "Braveheart" was overrated, it's thumbs up for Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto."<br /><br />(If only we could get rid of that ungrammatical ad-line: "No one can outrun their destiny.")