Pelo amor de deus, this movie is certainly one of the most racist and ethnocentric movies ever made. Hard to believe that it is from 1985 and not 1885. Boorman illustrated the average white "civilized" persons imagination of "primitive" tribes who by and large behave like a bunch of monkeys. Or, worse than that, cannibalistic monkeys who disguise like African zombies from another white mans fantasy. The acting is so poor and clumsy that it is almost comical, and, worst of all, the fake "Indian" language is just a slightly distorted English with even the exact same amount of syllables as the English sentence would have. This movie so utterly ridiculous - and discriminatory - that its stupid colonialist disdainfulness towards indigenous people almost completely destroys its somewhat ecological message.

I liked this movie a lot. It began as a story of a lost child and the father's never-ending search for him, and that is of course heart-rendering to all parents. But then it became so much more, not least a statement against the white man's ongoing destruction of the rain-forests - compared to the native Indians sustainable life-style in accord with nature.One got to learn a lot about the native Indians' life in the rain-forests, and this was very interesting... although I cannot help asking, if it was not just a LITTLE bit embellished..? I mean, not every tribe would have such a wise and empathic chief for instance, and I suppose not every father would have accepted a suitor from another race for his daughter, that easily... adopted or not.This movie evoked a lot of thoughts and questions. For instance I asked myself: could I have been happy if I had been abducted by such a tribe when I was a little girl? Would their tribal life, including very early marriages, many child-births and tasks strictly divided between men and women, and sometimes spiced up with magic, have been worse than the life that we modern western women have? When we try to juggle family and career? Provided that life with the tribe would really have been as idyllic as in the movie, I cannot answer that question with a definite "yes" or "no"...

I like to watch in pairs, and this was paired with Herzog's "Green Ants Dream."The central character here is a teen, played by the director's son, who is kidnapped by Amazonian Indians at six and raised in nature. There are threats, adventures, encounters with "civilization." They provide the focus of the energy in this thing. Its all about that energy which we take from the juice of adolescence, perceive as the energy of an action movie and conflate (as we are intended to) with the natural richness of the rainforest.Its a simple trick, but by gosh it works. Why is not a mystery: the teen drive is transformed into something pure here, done so by the actresses who play the teen Indian girls, lovely, and effectively nude. In order to underscore the point, the plot has them (importantly, as a group) kidnapped into civilization as a the complement of the original kidnapping. But the purpose here is prostitution. When someone knows what they are doing and delivers the goods, its always a remarkable thing. The narrative engineering conveys the lack of engineering, and makes us desire the purity of encountering things without artifice.Conveying this notion is then mixed with a completely unrelated message about the destruction of the rainforest and its central importance to the global ecology. Its rather dishonest, this, but because its such a noble cause we let it slip. But its a shame. In their defense, the acknowledge that just being native doesn't endow goodness: there is an "evil" tribe. Part of the tragedy is not shown: natives everywhere in the world aggressively damage the environment as much as their capabilities allow.The perfect delicacy of this puts "Apocalypto" to shame. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This movie makes some odd choices. On the one hand it's a good looking and also clearly professionally made movie with lots of talent involved but it just makes some wrong choices in its storytelling.The movie obviously starts of as a dramatic 'based on true' events movie but soon as the movie starts to progresses it starts taking some obvious 'Hollywood' turns, with its emotions and action and the story becomes more unlikely and clichéd. Of course nothing wrong with this, since it definitely makes the movie an entertaining and bit of adventurous one. But in this case the approach doesn't really work out, since it also obviously is a movie that wants to be taken seriously and has a clear message in it. You know, the kind of message to 'save the rain forest'. It also uses lots of technology vs. nature elements. I'll admit that this movie is a better attempt than all Steven Seagal attempts combined but no, that doesn't mean that this movie is a perfect or truly successful attempt on its own. The movie seems to lack the proper emotions to see this as a completely effective one, though the right intentions are definitely there. I mean for instance, the characters within this movie see each other again for the first time in 10 years but yet they seem hardly affected by it all.The natives scenes also aren't always among the best or most interesting one's out of the movie. Sure the nature environments are beautiful looking but it slows the movie a bit down in the middle, which also is in big contrast with the serious and dramatic first part of the movie and the action filled final part. The entire movie doesn't always feel like one whole. The parts of it are all too disjointed.It nevertheless it is a rather good- and also entertaining enough movie to watch, despite its obvious flaws and bad choices in the storytelling. And hey, it's got Powers Booth!7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/