10 Brilliant Historical Movies With Unforgivable Inaccuracies

Mel Gibson knows how to make a gripping piece of cinema. His action adventure movie Apocalypto set in Mexico during the early 1500s is wildly thrilling. What's more his portrayal of the Maya civilisation in decline is a striking commentary on our own society.

The Maya upper class are shown as indulging in excess, whereas the lower classes are exploited for cheap labour. The exploitation of the environment is shown through the degradation of the forrest, and human sacrifice is used to symbolise the political manipulation of the populous. As a metaphor for modern society, it's brilliant.

Having said that, using a historical society to make a commentary on the modern day can be damaging if not done with care. It's true the Maya civilisation was reaching a point of collapse during this period; it's estimated that to produce the quicklime needed to cover just one of their pyramids, up to 1600 acres of forrest would be destroyed.

But when it comes to the ol' mass human sacrifice scene, Gibson takes some pretty big liberties. It's true the Maya conducted human sacrifices, but nowhere near to the brutal scale shown in the movie. It was the Aztecs who were known for rounding up victims on a large scale; conflating the two civilisations is just disrespectful.