"Apocalypto" opens with a frenzied boar crashing through the dense jungle of Pre-Columbian Central America. Hunters pursue like wild animals themselves, seen only in startling glimpses, re-appearing to the left then right in an incoherent pattern. From the camera's vantage point the view is chaotic, thrilling and, in the end, violent.

Director Mel Gibson is in his element.

As a film maker, Gibson has launched out on an exotic arc becoming as much a cause for fascination as the projects he undertakes. His films throb with a visceral pulse; exalting a religious sensibility deeply shadowed by paranoia and, like Scorsese at his best, Gibson can get you lathered up over violence.

His movies also tend to crumble under intellectual scrutiny but as a viewer it's hard to care. Gibson is one of the few directors where the label "emotionally manipulative" could be viewed as a compliment.

The hunters are from a small forest tribe living an idyllic life at the farthest edges of the Mayan Empire. Gibson captures the easy intimacy of tribal life much the way Kevin Costner did in "Dances With Wolves." That his characters speak a language we don't understand (a Mayan dialect with subtitles) works in his favor, allowing him to keep a soft impressionistic focus on the details of his story.

But all is not well in this sheltered, primitive world. Strangers appear in the forest, slinking quietly by like refugees. Then one morning slavers raid the village capturing most of the adults and killing the rest. The tribe is hauled off to a gaudy Mayan city to be sold as slaves or sacrificed at the great temple. Meanwhile one member, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), looks for an opening to escape and return to the family he has hidden in the forest.

"Apocalypto" chronicles the violent, frightening journey to the city and back again. It's a story about motion and horror and little else. But when Gibson is on the move, he's at his best.

The pursuit of Jaguar Paw through the jungle is easily the film's highpoint. Gibson has a great instinct for pacing his action scenes and a genius for emotional imagery. The scene where a black panther gets caught up in the chase is particularly juicy.

Those old enough to remember may notice a few lifts from the 1966 movie "The Naked Prey," but it's a pleasant detour into nostalgia and in Gibson's able hands this artful scavenging should be seen as a tribute.

Gibson stumbles in two places; the first his habit of letting shock slip into revulsion. Early in the film he paints, with a deft touch, a compelling picture of horror. The tribe's children following the prisoners to a river's edge where they can go no further are heartbreaking and the cruel machismo of the slaver's body art brings a satisfying edginess to the story. But Gibson doesn't know when to back off and let the chill work its way down your spine. His vision becomes more progressively grotesque and by the time the hapless prisoners find themselves at the great Mayan city his imagery has become a cartoon of depravity. Gibson doesn't understand that the most frightening glimpse of evil emerges out of the ordinary.

The second place that Gibson slips is where he tries to weave some meaning into his story. Gibson thinks with his adrenal glands and is at his weakest when he's trying to make sense - dialogue is not his friend. It was those bone-crunching battle scenes in "Braveheart" that won him his Oscar, not that shambling finale where William Wallace shouts "freedom." "Apocalypto" winds down with a similarly feeble stab at symbolism.

"Apocalypto" is an emotional roller coaster ride. And like a roller coaster, the movie's end doesn't arrive at a coherent statement; it just delivers you to an exit.

Directed by: Mel Gibson

Rated: R

(Two and a half stars)

Bruce Bulloch may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com