Apocalypto

While hunting tapir in the Mesoamerican jungle in the early 16th century, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), his father Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead), and their fellow tribesmen encounter a procession of traumatized refugees. Speaking in Yucatec Maya, the group's leader explains that their lands were ravaged, and asks for permission to pass through the jungle. When Jaguar Paw and his tribesmen return home, Flint Sky tells his son not to let the refugees' fear infect him.

The next morning, after Jaguar Paw wakes from a nightmare involving the refugee leader, he sees warriors entering the village and setting the huts on fire. The raiders, led by Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo), attack and subdue the villagers. Jaguar Paw slips out with his pregnant wife Seven (Dalia Hernández) and his little son Turtles Run, lowering them by vine into a deep vertical cave, tying the vine off so they could climb out later. Jaguar Paw then kills a raider and returns to help the village. He is eventually subdued and an insane raider named Middle Eye (Gerardo Taracena), whom Jaguar Paw almost killed, slits Flint Sky's throat while the bound Jaguar Paw can only watch. Before the raiders leave with their prisoners, Snake Ink, one of the raider captains, notices Jaguar Paw staring toward the cave. Suspicious of the tied off vine hanging into the cave, he cuts it, trapping Seven and Turtles Run. Jaguar Paw and the other captives are then led off into the jungle.

A short distance from the village they join another group of raiders who have captured the refugees Jaguar Paw met the day before. Later, Cocoa Leaf, a wounded captive tied to the same pole as Jaguar Paw nearly tumbles off a cliff, but Jaguar Paw and the others are able to pull him back up with incredible effort. Though Middle Eye, who is guarding them, is impressed by this show of brute power, he kills Cocoa Leaf by cutting him loose and pushing him off the cliff to taunt Jaguar Paw.

The raiding party march toward a Mayan city, encountering razed forests and failed maize crops, along with villages decimated by plague. A small girl dying of plague prophesies that a man running with a jaguar will bring the raiders to those who will scratch out the earth and end their world. In the city's outskirts, where the prisoners come upon slaves working in lime quarries, the female captives are sold as slaves while the males are escorted to the top of a step pyramid. The high priest sacrifices several captives, including Jaguar Paw's friend Curl Nose, by cutting out their beating hearts before beheading them. When Jaguar Paw is about to be sacrificed, a solar eclipse (also prophesied by the girl) occurs. The high priest looks at the king and the two share a knowing smile while the people below panic at the phenomenon. The priest declares the sun god Kukulkan is satisfied with the sacrifices. He asks Kukulkan to let light return to the world and the eclipse passes. The crowd cheers in amazement and the priest orders that the remaining captives be led away and disposed of.

Zero Wolf takes the captives to a ball court. The captives are released in pairs and forced to run the length of the open space within the ball court, offering Zero Wolf's men some target practice, with a cynical promise of freedom should they reach the end of the field alive. Zero Wolf's son, Cut Rock, is sent to the end of the field to "finish" any survivors. The raiders target the runners with javelins, arrows, and large stones. The first pair are Jaguar Paw's last living friends, Smoke Frog and Blunted. Smoke Frog is struck by a heavy stone, then finished off by Cut Rock while Blunted is impaled through the stomach by a javelin.

Next up are Jaguar Paw and the refugee leader from the beginning. Although they almost make it, the refugee leader is shot through the head by an arrow and Jaguar Paw is shot through the side of his stomach by an arrow. As Cut Rock approaches to finish Jaguar Paw, the not-quite-dead Blunted trips Cut Rock to buy Jaguar Paw time. Cut Rock gets up and savagely kills Blunted then turns to finish off Jaguar Paw, but is stabbed through the neck with an arrowhead by Jaguar Paw, who then stumbles away toward the jungle.

As Cut Rock bleeds out with Zero Wolf easing him into the next life, Jaguar Paw runs through a withered maize field and an open mass grave before finally reaching the jungle. The enraged Zero Wolf and his men pursue Jaguar Paw into the jungle and back toward Jaguar Paw's home. Along the way, one of the raiders is killed by a black jaguar angered by Jaguar Paw. Another raider is killed when a venomous snake bites his neck. Eventually, after running all night, Jaguar Paw finds himself caught between a high waterfall and his hunters and is forced to jump. He survives and declares from the riverbank below that the raiders are now in his homelands, echoing his father's challenge to the refugees at the beginning of the film.

After listening to Jaguar Paw's challenge, Snake Ink says they should climb down after Jaguar Paw but is stabbed by Zero Wolf for his suggestion. Zero Wolf then commands that he and his men jump the falls and in shock, they all jump as well. While most make it alive, one smashes his head on the rocks below and is killed. The remaining men swim to the shore and re-start their pursuit, but soon Jaguar Paw, now camouflaged in mud, kills one raider with poison darts, only to immediately confront Middle Eye, bludgeoning him to death with the Mayan war club of the raider he just killed. However, much to Jaguar Paw's worries, it begins raining heavily, with the cave where Jaguar Paw's wife and son are trapped starting to flood. As he rushes to save his family, Jaguar Paw is confronted by Zero Wolf and shot again with an arrow. As Zero Wolf advances to finish Jaguar Paw he is impaled and killed by a trap meant for hunting tapir.

Following Zero Wolf's death, the two remaining raiders chase Jaguar Paw out to a beach where, much to the surprise of all three of them, they encounter Spanish ships anchored off the coast, with soldiers making their way ashore. The amazement of the raiders allows Jaguar Paw to flee. He returns into the forest to pull his wife and son out of the flooded pit where they are hiding, and where Seven has just given birth to a healthy second son. As the reunited family look out from the forest towards the Spanish ships, Seven wonders if they should go to the strangers, but Jaguar Paw tells his family to return with him to the forest. They head into the jungle in search of a new beginning.

10/10