As a person of faith I very much enjoy most movies about Jesus. To this day we have never been presented a movie that is accurate according to scripture; this one is no different. However, whereas most movies cater to drama over accuracy, this one does something pleasantly different:
Jesus is portrayed as a Jew. No blue-eyed Englishman here... this is a swarthy, large-nosed, coarse-haired actor who is believable in the part.
The actions of Jesus and those surrounding him are typical of that people and times (as we understand them).
The movie relies on the Gospel of John as a narrative in telling the tale. The actors themselves speak in the language of the day, and the entire story is narrated in English.
The later point is both the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the movie. On the one hand it is pleasant to see the people, times and language more accurately portrayed. On the other hand, after about an hour that narration starts droning on... and on... and on. This reaches an extreme during and following the Lord's Supper, in which dialog is taken right out of scripture-- for quite a very lengthy period of time. I actually had to fight falling asleep during this presentation, as the director drops all sense of drama and movie-making and basically "reads from the Bible". Some may applaud that. My question to the director: did you forget you were making a film and suddenly change to conducting a Sunday Morning sermon?
As with all such films, "artistic liberties" were taken in the telling of the story. Despite heavy reliance on scripture, the film doesn't hold 100% to scriptural accuracy and portrayal... and like so many films really cuts on the special effects. We don't see the holy spirit coming from heaven in the form of a dove at Jesus' baptism, nor many of his other miracles. And by sticking solely to the Gospel of John there are significant parts of Jesus' time on Earth that are disappointingly left out entirely (such as Peter trying to walk on water to meet Jesus). Overall the impression is given of obsessive structure-no-matter-what, that actually removes from the quality of the film overall.
That is what we're reviewing here-- not the story of Jesus but the quality of the movie itself. Corners were cut in all the wrong places, and in other places the story line dragged out to the point of being excessively word-for-word at the sacrifice of telling the story in movie format. In the end it comes to 2 hours and 40 minutes that felt like every bit of 2 hours and 40 minutes. It just dragged on. Parts of this film were fairly bad directing and story telling. If I wanted to read the account of John, I'd read the account of John. I'm a big fan of the main character, but this is supposed to be a movie, not a public Bible reading.
Kudos for them pulling away from the standard movie tropes: we actually get to see Jesus's face, he looks like just an ordinary person (which is accurate according to scripture), the actors speak language that makes the movie feel more authentic. But the same things that benefit the movie drag it down-- the endless, droning narration, omission of vital parts of Jesus' ministry, and some actual scriptural inaccuracies are the downsides. Considering the number of times during this film I had to force myself to stay awake, all I can give it is a mediocre rating. Had the director employed a little more skill and focused on who Jesus was rather than word-for-word dialog of lengthy scriptural passages... it could have been a much more enjoyable movie.
Spoiler: Jesus dies. But there's a twist ending. ; )
Jesus is portrayed as a Jew. No blue-eyed Englishman here... this is a swarthy, large-nosed, coarse-haired actor who is believable in the part.
The actions of Jesus and those surrounding him are typical of that people and times (as we understand them).
The movie relies on the Gospel of John as a narrative in telling the tale. The actors themselves speak in the language of the day, and the entire story is narrated in English.
The later point is both the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the movie. On the one hand it is pleasant to see the people, times and language more accurately portrayed. On the other hand, after about an hour that narration starts droning on... and on... and on. This reaches an extreme during and following the Lord's Supper, in which dialog is taken right out of scripture-- for quite a very lengthy period of time. I actually had to fight falling asleep during this presentation, as the director drops all sense of drama and movie-making and basically "reads from the Bible". Some may applaud that. My question to the director: did you forget you were making a film and suddenly change to conducting a Sunday Morning sermon?
As with all such films, "artistic liberties" were taken in the telling of the story. Despite heavy reliance on scripture, the film doesn't hold 100% to scriptural accuracy and portrayal... and like so many films really cuts on the special effects. We don't see the holy spirit coming from heaven in the form of a dove at Jesus' baptism, nor many of his other miracles. And by sticking solely to the Gospel of John there are significant parts of Jesus' time on Earth that are disappointingly left out entirely (such as Peter trying to walk on water to meet Jesus). Overall the impression is given of obsessive structure-no-matter-what, that actually removes from the quality of the film overall.
That is what we're reviewing here-- not the story of Jesus but the quality of the movie itself. Corners were cut in all the wrong places, and in other places the story line dragged out to the point of being excessively word-for-word at the sacrifice of telling the story in movie format. In the end it comes to 2 hours and 40 minutes that felt like every bit of 2 hours and 40 minutes. It just dragged on. Parts of this film were fairly bad directing and story telling. If I wanted to read the account of John, I'd read the account of John. I'm a big fan of the main character, but this is supposed to be a movie, not a public Bible reading.
Kudos for them pulling away from the standard movie tropes: we actually get to see Jesus's face, he looks like just an ordinary person (which is accurate according to scripture), the actors speak language that makes the movie feel more authentic. But the same things that benefit the movie drag it down-- the endless, droning narration, omission of vital parts of Jesus' ministry, and some actual scriptural inaccuracies are the downsides. Considering the number of times during this film I had to force myself to stay awake, all I can give it is a mediocre rating. Had the director employed a little more skill and focused on who Jesus was rather than word-for-word dialog of lengthy scriptural passages... it could have been a much more enjoyable movie.
Spoiler: Jesus dies. But there's a twist ending. ; )