Xibalba

The 2 cave divers you see diving in the real cave were diving with 2 side mount cylinders as well as a smaller cylinder (deco or bailout bottle) and were wearing normal scuba masks, one with helmet with 2 lights on the side (typical cave gear). Yet when you see ALL the divers come up, they are wearing full face masks, only have a single centre back mount tank. They also talk about being low on O2 (not air) and earlier discussed oxygen percentages they had left. It should have been how many PSI or Bar they had left. I'm sure they just took some stock footage of cave divers and put the rest in, but even non divers can tell the difference in gear.

It's definitely a SyFy Channel wannabe, but actually with a far better plot and cinematography. The biggest con is it takes forever to truly get to the action with the "aliens". While the build up is decent it lacks energy. The direction and story building is there but the actors for the most part seem to just go through the actions. The fact that the build up takes so long and you invest in watching for a payoff the payoff comes slate and leaves the movie open as if this were a pilot or the beginning of a series of movies and with the premise used. Sadly, because of that the ending was empty as a standalone.

Well, I found out that this movie was based on something with aliens and ancient Mayan lore, so I figured that it might actually have potential to be something worth watching.

Turns out that I was quite wrong. Wow, this movie was, and let me be bluntly honest here, god awful boring. There was literally nothing happening of any worth or interest happening throughout the entire movie, except for maybe the last five or ten minutes of the movie. And even that wasn't something you'd get worked up about.

This was essentially just following an expedition crew as they participated in what have to be the most boring expedition and spelunking ever.

The dialogue in the movie was fairly flaccid, but then again it did of course match the characters well enough, because the character gallery in this movie was just horrible. Every single character could essentially be replaced by a cardboard cutout - as they had the same personalities.

I will say that the creature - or more correctly - alien design was actually good, and that was the best part of the entire movie. But it was nowhere near enough for making up for all the rest of the movie, as it was one massive disappointing shortcoming.

Do no bother with spending your time, money or effort on this 2017 movie by director and writer Joaquin Rodriguez. Some of us suffered through this ordeal titled "Curse of the Mayans" (aka "Xibalba") so you don't have to.

I am rating this movie a generous two out of ten stars.

It could have been a good movie with a better script. Also the aliens were so stupid looking it could have been a comedy. I don't think saying the aliens were a joke is a spoiler even if they spoiled the movie.

...unfortunately this one gets worse by the minute from around 40min onwards, until the agonizingly boring and pointless crescendo of the last 16min when you wish it could end sooner.

This is not made up to drag it down, just my thoughts while enduring this, hoping it would somehow pickup and suddenly get a turn to the positive (entertaining film-making).

All in all there were many potential opportunities to make this better, into an entertaining horror flick a la the descent, or with romance, action, artefacts and humor like the ol'classic romancing the stone, or pure short paced action a la Tomb Raider, Raiders of the lost arc or Uncharted. No, this one just got lamer by the minute. Yes I got the idea what the writers got in mind, and appreciate the attempted twist of mayan prophecy and the connection to the world at present day, but - it simply failed to entertain.

(the most shocking sequence and proof of a lack of idea? Was a backflash to a 40s conversation between the main protagonists about the evil beings, just a few minutes earlier in the film. How boring can something get when you are already bored)

All in all I dont write many negative reviews, just vote, but this annoyed me a bit. Have to watch something better now.