PLOT: Set in Central America before the arrival of European invaders, the story chronicles how the Mayan civilization disintegrated through drought, societal chaos, religious extremism, slavery and murder.

As a filmmaker, Mel Gibson is an 'anti' and not a 'pro' person, so his films are violent, brutal and reactionary.

In Braveheart, he was anti-English (with good reason, if you look at the English conquests through Scottish eyes). And in The Passion Of The Christ he was anti-Semitic (his recent alcohol-fueled, anti-Jewish rant was no surprise).

It is consistent, then, that his new Mayan film Apocalypto drowns in a sea of Mayan blood.

What is shocking is that there seems to be no overriding intellectual purpose to this film. The grim truth is that Apocalypto, despite the supposed attention to archaeological and anthropological detail, is a big, fat B-movie -- a Tarzan potboiler for the new millennium.

The film masquerades as art because it has breathtaking attributes: Fabulous cinematography, gorgeous art direction and costuming, strong aboriginal casting and spectacular action that makes Indiana Jones' rolling-ball run seem like a stroll through a kiddie playground.

Apocalypto is really one, long chase sequence that operates -- with heart-pounding, brain-throbbing, fist-clenching instensity -- as a cinematic adrenaline rush.

The story chronicles how a hunting-based Mayan village in the tropical rainforest is overrun by sadistic slave traders from a major city. The traders rape, torture and kill. Those who survive are transported to the city to be sold as slaves or offered to priests to be used as human sacrifices. At the time, there is an orgy of blooding-letting designed to appease the gods who have brought drought and disease.

With English subtitles, the movie is acted in the modern Yacatec Maya language by a semi-authentic cast of actors with native heritage. The charismatic lead, Texan Rudy (Gonzalez) Youngblood, includes Cree, Comanche and Yaqui in his bloodlines. Other actors, cast for their striking and expressive faces, are from Canada, the U.S., Mexico and other parts of the Americas.

At first, it looks as if Gibson (working from a script by Farhad Safinia) is serious about historical accuracy. Village life, including the tapir-hunt, resonates with the gritty stuff of life in the 1500s.

Once the chase is on, however, any pretense that Mayan culture will be explored with care is thrown out. By the time we get to the city, Gibson portrays Mayans only as brainless, bloodthristy savages. The environmental concerns and climate-related reasons for their violence and decline are glossed over as religious mumbo-jumbo.

Meanwhile, the staggering complexity of Mayan civilization, and the reasons it collapsed long before it was overrun by the filthy Spanish hordes, are virtually ignored.

So what exactly, or even vaguely, is Mel Gibson trying to say that is not obvious, primitive and ridiculous? Mad Mel kept the answers to himself. They are not in the film.

BOTTOM LINE: If Mel Gibson were serious about presenting the pre-Columbian Mayans in all their complexity, he would not have made a simplistic, blood-bathed chase movie. It is thrilling, all right, but counts as little more than a modern Tarzan without the forest yodel.

(This film is rated 18-A)
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