So maybe I'm late on this one, but I finally saw the film, just got home from it actually. As a film, it was pretty damn good. I don't buy that someone who didn't know the backstory wouldn't be able to get into it. At the very least they would get that this is a guy who thinks he's the son of God and is sacrificing himself to a horrible death. The acting was excellent, Jim Caviziel was a standout, but all the other performances were almost as great; the camera work and directing were, although not incredible, very good. The score, on the other hand, was fantastic; and the script, well the script was only what it could be.
It's tough to categorize the violence in the film. Yes it was violent, brutally so, but it wasn't the 2 hour gore fest that it was made out to be. The viscious, horrible violence really only happened in a couple of scenes, all the other bloodshed was from the continued effects of the violence. The only other scenes that have ever made me feel the way the scourging and crucifixion did were in American Psycho the book, not the movie. Yes it was brutal, yes it was gorey, but I'm having trouble with the 'violent' label. Maybe because not a single attack or drop of blood was gratuitous, and I'm just not used to it. I don't know.
After all this, the real question is,"So what?" That's what I walked out of the the theatre saying to myself. I don't mean that in a blasphemous or sacreligious way. I'm speaking from the viewpoint of someone who knows this story inside and out, someone who's spent a great deal of time studying it. I've read the truths and The Truths. I know the fables and the myths. I've studied secular and non-secular papers on it. I've read confirmations and denials. For an amateur, I'm not an academic and I'm not clergy, I would say I'm somewhat more knowledgeable on the subject than the average man on the street. Other than the ultra realistic depictions of the punishments, there was nothing new in the film. I get the same message from Jesus Christ Superstar. There was no great surge of spirituality that a lot of other people have claimed to feel. It's basically a remake of the same movie I've seen before. It's Psycho; it's Cape Fear; it's King Kong.
Edit: I did feel a surge, but it wasn't spiritual. It had more to do with spending half the movie thinking about dropping a nut on Monica Bellucci's chin.
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If I were any better, I'd have to be twins!!
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I'm Rick James, bitch!
This message was edited by blakjeezis on 3-6-04 @ 5:51 PM