Just got back from it as well.

Without much effort I could name a dozen recent movies that are just as explicit and sadistic with the violence and didn't feel it was anything out of line in that regard.

The thing that didn't sit well were some of the attempts at humor. The opening scene stuff was good and served to create a common connection with the audience (the locker room hasn't changed much). But some of the stuff later on really felt out of place and may be why some are reacting poorly to the violence. Either make it deep and significant or cartoonish, but what little humor there was undercut either.

This really wasn't the movie for a Midnight Cowboy reference.

Gibson hinted at something great with the scenes in the Mayan city. The corrupt struggle by power to maintain power when things start to go wrong. The misuse of fear and superstitition. But that is just a second act mechanism for setting up the third act chase.

From that point on it was just a genre flick that has been done many times. When Jaguar Paw took out his first bad guy in the jungle he should have said "yippee-kai-yay mother****er" just to give a nod to the best movie of this story type.

I was entertained. It was beautifully shot. I love listening to languages with absolutely no linguistic connection to Latin or Greek. The first half up until the temple scene is fantastic, brutal, and heartwrenching. The second half is just by-the-numbers genre work. Unfortunately, that is the reverse of what it needed to be. It is ok to start genre and go deep, but the reverse generally doesn't work well.

I think the reviews would be better for the exact same movie if the name on top was other than Mel Gibson and critics have gotten it into their heads that it is time to psychoanalyze the filmmaker and forget to give due consideration to the film.

The environment of a film is certainly valid for discussion but ultimately it is about the individual movie.