The Ruins is a wreck

'The Ruins'

Atop a mysterious Maya temple, young vacationers find themselves trapped. From there, the movie goes nowhere.Based on a novel by Scott B. Smith (who also wrote the screenplay) and directed by Carter Smith (no relation), "The Ruins" follows a group of young Americans (Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore and Laura Ramsey) on vacation in Mexico. Looking to get away from the cloistered resort where they are staying, they fall in with a German party boy (Joe Anderson) and a few random Greeks to explore a rumored Maya temple that is, as everyone keeps saying, not even on the map.

Next thing they know, there are locals with guns and bows-and-arrows forcing them to remain atop the ruins, and they have to amputate a fellow traveler's legs using a found knife and a hot frying pan. Then things get really bad.How bad is it?Scott Smith might have been nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of his own "A Simple Plan," but no such recognition will be coming his way for his work here. The characters never evolve past mere functionality, and the adherence to certain tried-and-true horror tropes--the good girl who doesn't want to go but does, the generic naughty kids who get it first--feels workmanlike, robbing the story of any real suspense or surprise.

Not even a fixer-upper, "The Ruins" should be considered a complete tear-down.But the movie isn't a total loss:Here are a few fashion tips for exotic travel one can glean from "The Ruins"--regardless of the calendar's relationship to Labor Day, white jeans should not be worn for a jungle excursion, and flip-flops aren't such a hot idea either. Also, young women should heed the old truism about wearing clean underwear just in case, because somehow you will end up with your pants off, no matter the circumstances.

Though these might seem like arcane or somewhat fanciful reactions, when a film is as depressingly inert and blithely gruesome as "The Ruins," the mind does wander.On the other hand, here's a "positive" review:

'Ruins' will make you squirmThe attractive young people arrive at a Mayan pyramid and are soon met by what we see in the credits are Mayans, though anthropologists might be surprised.

The Mayans seem particularly unfriendly, so the AYPs take refuge at the top of the pyramid. There they learn they have more to fear from the evil entity than members of a long-extinct civilization.

The bulk of the film's setting, the top of the pyramid, eventually works against the movie. It is simply too confined a space and offers too little variety. With too little to do, the characters wind up having dull conversations that only detract from the tension.

Offsetting that problem is the evil entity, which has one extremely cool aural twist and which manifests its danger in intriguing ways. The gory parts, it should be noted, are initiated by the characters themselves, though always with good reason.

The acting is as good as it needs to be, which isn't saying a whole lot, but the actors all express fear well enough.

They may not be able to transfer that fear to the audience, but the idea of the story and the well-handled gore create a high level of the desired ickiness.Comment:  Wow..."well-handled gore." Just what I want to waste two hours of my life on.

I don't know if the "evil entity" is controlling the Maya, but they sound like cardboard characters at best, villains at worst. In any case, it seems the Maya civilization is the source of the evil.

Wouldn't it be nice if, just once, a group of young Indians saved the world from an Anglo curse?

For films you should watch instead of The Ruins, see The Best Indian Movies.