We didn’t think much of it when Gibson’s Mayan hunters – who presumably spend most of their time doing things like exploring their jungle home – were completely unaware of a gargantuan city less than a day’s walk from their village.

Then, we shooed our doubt in the Mayan metropolis, when the moon that had been edging toward the sun all day long still dropped thousands of peon jaws when it eclipsed the sun – and when the eclipse lasted all of five seconds.

We even held our tongue when country boy Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) managed to dodge the better part of a hailstorm of arrows and spears, dash over a carpet of bodies (stored conveniently adjacent to a cornfield) and shake six or seven city-slicker pursuers.

So when a skewered, bleeding and exhausted Jaguar Paw was also able to outrun a real jaguar for a good half-mile, you could say a small seed of skepticism could have been sown. By the time Gibson had Youngblood leap off a 50-foot waterfall, dodging every one of the rocks below and still managing to walk off unscathed, forgive the snicker that may have escaped us.

But good God, that ending – a high-velocity childbirth in a rocky pit rapidy filling with rainwater, as Jaguar Paw’s wife struggles to keep her head above water, a toddler in one arm and a newborn infant (umbilical cord still intact) in the other.

It looks like the end for Jaguar Paw and his family – and it’s about time – when suddenly, in the greatest deus ex machina of 2006, a ship full of European explorers shows up, and … everything magically resolves itself! Jaguar Paw and his newly extended family (including a mysteriously rescued and dried-off wife) strike off into a bold new world, as unsure about the horizon that awaits as we are about what the fuck just happened.

Sorry, Mel, you can’t blame this one on the Jews.