Once Upon A Time...

There was this really cool land bridge. There were no homo sapiens in the Americas because there was no way to get there from Africa. Then the Bering land bridge rose from the receeding waters of the Bering Strait, and herds of meat animals starting winding their way across. And whenever there was meat on the hoof, then came humankind.

Some of these folks stayed in what would become North America, but others went south. Their northern cousins were content to remain nomads for the most part as they followed the bison herds, but the southerners started building these huge cities to bloodthirsty gods. Whoops. Bloodthirsty gods and ancient man means trouble, and sure enough they began ritual sacrifices on a scale that would have made Hitler proud. Matter of fact, there's some evidence to suggest the old tyrant thought the Mayans and the Incans were pretty cool dudes. Not that they did anything noteworthy, mind you. There was no renaissance, no inventions to stun the world, no art save for depictions of...you got it...bloodthirsty gods drinking blood from a still beating heart, and things like that.

Fast forward for a while with me, if you please, and a modern day mad hatter has his take on the matter:

Unpleasant, pointless, gruesome, and exploitative, Apocalypto is the worst movie of the year.