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Directed by: Mel Gibson Starring: James Caviezel, Monica Bellucci Someone had to make the thread, so I guess I may as well. But, a note: I am reviewing this as a movie, not as a religious experience. The Passion of the Christ is two hours of mind numbing violence. We're talking Jesus being beaten in slow motion for the greater part of a hour. There's no way there could be any more blood, even if Peter Jackson directed this movie in his horror movie heyday. It's so violent that I got so used to the violence that it didn't move me to tears like most of the audience, it moved me to wondering why this movie was made. I find it ironic that violent movies are routinely blasted for being violent and "corrupting the youth" by the Christian Right, but then this movie is actively encouraged to be seen by the same people. For the record, I'm not Christian. I probably don't get the greater meaning behind Jesus and his sacrifice. I understand that it must have sucked to be betrayed by your people and father and then killed in a very painful way, and that it was good that he died in the end because it absolved his followers of their sins. But why was the movie made? Does watching one man get tortured bring non-believers to the side of Jesus? It seemed very unneccessary. Another gripe I had with the movie is that it dropped you right into the middle of the shitstorm. All of the Christian theology I know are bits and pieces I've picked up from friends and Monty Python's Life of Brian, so I was absolutely lost from the get go. At first, Mel Gibson wanted to make the movie and not include subtitles to the Aramaic/Latin dialogue, putting a lot of faith in the audience's ability to interpret as they'd like. I don't think this would have changed things for me, because even with the subtitles, I felt like I had no background information on the characters (other than Jesus's flashbacks, which provided a little background, but not much). And on an unrelated note, the part at the end where God cries was really loving stupid. The Passion was made for a specific audience, so if you're hardcore Christian, you should probably see this movie. But, it's no The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur or The Last Temptation of Christ. If you want a movie that gives shape to bible stories and Christianity, go rent one of those movies. If you want to see Jesus get whipped in slow motion with no message, form or function, The Passion is the movie for you. 0 Stars, the only reason this movie made so much money is because of controversy and a huge built-in audience. RATING: 0.5 PROS: Gibson decided that subtitles were a good idea afterall. CONS: No plot, no character development, no entertainment value unless you're into snuff films. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/
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May 9, 2004 06:38
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First. I don't get why this movie is being lauded by all of these Christian orginizations. It has no message whatsoever, and completely misses the point. There's no point to seeing Christ die if you don't even take fifteen minutes of screen time to talk about his message, or his miricles, or his himility, or his incredible speaking. With a few minor edits, this film COULD be about some random heretic being crucified. Second. Ignoring all of the supposed religious goodness of this film, just look at it is for what it is; a movie. It's not a very well done movie. The purpose of a motion picture is to entertain (Or evoke thought a la Requiem, which this film doesn't do either), and this piece of cinematic trash doesn't do that at all. The first hour is boring and badly acted, and the remaining 45 minutes are only one step up the ladder from any domination/snuff/beating/rape site on the internet. It's a piece of poo poo. We need a good movie about Jesus, and, coming from a Christian, this isn't it. EDIT: Here's an excellent review that basically sums up my feelings on the matter: http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-02-26/movie_reviews.php quote:
The Walrus fucked around with this message at 06:57 on May 9, 2004 |
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May 9, 2004 06:53
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I think that it is amusing that many Christian organizations chose to abhor violence and encourage people to avoid violent films, but practically demand this one be watched. However, I think that the movie did deliver one message that was only intended for the built in audience. "Look what Jesus did for you. What do you intend to do for him?". That is basically all the movie seems to want you to grasp, that the ultimate sacrifice was made for humanity. I don't think anything else was to be grasped from it. It is basically a word for word account (albeit a few liberties taken) of the Gospel of Matthew. So for the hardocre Christian audience, this was the greatest film ever and the ultimate guilt trip to "take your heathen rear end to church". As a movie, I tend to look at historical aspects. I thought the whitewashing of Pilate as some reluctant executioner was not right. However, he is portrayed in the Bible that way even though in reality he was removed from his office due to his cruelty. Go figure, but since the Bible was the only real source for the film, I couldn't have expected that to be fixed. Although I was happy with the representation of a Roman crucifixtion, and all the costumes were dead on. Overall, as a Christian even I thought the movie could have used some work. I don't dispute that the crucifixtion of Christ was terribly violent, but I think far too much attention was paid to that, and not enough attention was given to Jesus' real messages of humility, to love your enemy, forgive others, turn the other cheek, and so on. So much more could have filled the film and made it a truly great film, however it did the true message of the story a bit of an injustice by focusing on the violence instead of Jesus' intentions specified in the Bible. Overall, I think the film is worth a 4.0 since I liked the scenery and costumes and use of languages so much. But as a Christian, I felt the film was lacking some real spiritual context.
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May 9, 2004 16:09
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I don't understand what the hell everyone's problem is with this movie. It's not even close to being as violent as half of the other movies I've seen. Sure, the torture and crucifixion were violent and bloody, but I've seen worse...much worse. Everyone is up in arms about it being anti-semetic, gory, yadda yadda yadda. Who cares?! Take a friggin look at the other movies out now, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Man On Fire are two examples of movies that have been recieved with open arms by the public and no hoo-ha has been brought up about them, has there? No, it's because Passion is a fuckin religious film, and we all know how the Churchies get when their "savior" is put on screen. Saw it, it was OK, didn't change my mind about being an Atheist...in fact, it enforced it.
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May 9, 2004 16:10
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My only problem with this movie...is that it wasn't a movie. It was a 2-hour illustrated guilt-trip. I'm giving it a 1.5, because for being nothing more than Jesus getting the christ beat out of him for 2 hours, the scenery and cinematography was good.
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May 9, 2004 17:22
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I'm not sure what everyone's problem with this film was. If you saw it without knowing it was about Christ's last 12 hours, that's your fault. I'm atheist (hell, I downloaded the film) but the film doesn't require you to believe. While I don't consider Jesus the son of any god, I do believe that he was a good man, and that's what this film shows. This film is simple, interesting, beautiful and horrifying at the same time. I only wish the score could have been better. I think some of you (including the eight who rated it '0.5') were expecting more thanks to its unprecedented hype.
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May 9, 2004 17:28
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What a lousy film. The Chicago Tribune was right, it's the "Jesus Chainsaw Massacre."
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May 9, 2004 19:40
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I caught a huge screening of this and it was more or less what I expected, a pretty average movie. In partial response to another reviewer's complaint: I actually liked the lack of background. I haven't read anything approaching a Bible in probably 10 years, and I found it easy enough to follow. I think explanations that would remove the viewer from the final 12 hours would have taken away from the film, since that pain and anguish and suffering is the whole point of the thing. I think the flashbacks did just that, and I didn't like them much at all. The acting is pretty good, although I thought the crowd scenes were a little bit underwhelming. I didn't notice anything marvelous about the direction or cinematography, although I did think it looked generally pretty good. The spiraling shot reflected in the rain droplet was innovative, if not very intriguing. All in all, not as good or as bad as people would have you think, unless you really can't stand seeing violence. I gave it a 3.
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May 9, 2004 20:08
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From the movie alone, it isn't clear what Jesus died for. He died for the sins of the people who killed him, seems to be the circular reasoning. Like the disappearing/reappearing red syrup that stains Caviezel's wardrobe, the director's hatred disappears and reappears, bleeding from so many scenes. But what really distracted me was the tv-movie production values. The many bloopers, the one-dimensional characters, the out-of-context special effects and the confusing imagery. Trouble with this rating system: while I thought the movie was really bad, I'd still recommend people to see it; but that's due to the subject matter rather than the execution. pun intended Binary Logic fucked around with this message at 21:16 on May 9, 2004 |
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May 9, 2004 21:13
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I find it loving ridiculous that so many people complain about the violence in this movie. The main complaint about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was the crappy plot and horror cliches, but not the extreme amount of violence (which was at LEAST twice that of The Passion, and much more gruesome). And what's wrong with violence anyway? I didn't hear you guys complaining that there was too much gore in Dawn of the Dead. I think people are just using the "too much violence" as a copout reason to bash the film. As for my opinion of The Passion, I thought it was an extremely well-done and moving experience. The acting, direction and cinematography were all excellent. But if you disagree with that I don't really care. What I care about is all the hypocrites who bash The Passion for its violence, and then go see Kill Bill and have no complaints. EDIT on 03/25/13 - Yes, nearly 9 years after I made this post. Nobody will probably ever see this edit but I need to set the record straight. I've changed a lot in the last 9 years, both in terms of my movie opinions and my personal beliefs. I now realize how horrible this movie is. I think it's shameful for a filmmaker to place the burden of providing emotional substance entirely on the audience. Much like a Sunday school pamphlet or an annotated study bible, this film works solely as a supplement to your own Christian beliefs. But if you happen to not hold these beliefs, it becomes apparent what a vapid, lazy movie this is. It's really nothing more than a dude getting tortured for 90 minutes. This is less a film and more a visual study aid. "See folks, Jesus died REAL BAD!" There, now that that's cleared up you all can go on ignoring a decade-old thread. Spatulater bro! fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Mar 25, 2013 |
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May 9, 2004 21:45
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quote:caiman came out of the closet to say: Have you seen Kill Bill? It is violent, sure, but in a completely different way than the Passion. There's a difference between intentionally cartoony and over-the-top geysers of blood and watching flesh get slowly stripped off of someone's body over the course of a 45 minute snuff scene.
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May 9, 2004 22:05
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quote:The Walrus came out of the closet to say: I'll give you that. Kill Bill may not be the best example. So in my statement, replace Kill Bill with any of the dozens of ultra violent movies that have come out recently that no one complains about. But let's not get into a discussion as not to piss off the mods. 
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May 9, 2004 22:45
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I think it was a good film, WAY too overhyped but still a good film. Since i grew up a christian I knew all the buildup and could compare it to what was in the bible.
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May 10, 2004 02:04
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It was boring, just incredibly boring. Who really wants to see someone being tortured to death for that long? I know it was about the last days of Jesus but they should have at least had more flashbacks or started the movie sometime before he gets kidnapped. I give it a 1.5/5 only because the devil character holding the freaky midget baby was pretty cool as well as some of the other imagery of the film.
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May 10, 2004 05:50
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talk about completely missing the point on all fronts, pretty much every one of you that gave this film really low ratings have absolutely no idea what you're doing rating a film like this. the acting was wonderful, the plot was dead on what it was supposed to be about, it was quite literally just taking a small part of the bible and putting it into a viewable form, sure it might have been geared towards Christians but where's the harm in that, Mary Kate and Ashley Olson films are geared towards pre-teens. if there are any faults to be pointed out in this film it's that Mel Gibson may have assumed too much about the viewing audience. he may have assumed that it was going to be watched by people that had have an f'ing clue who Jesus was and what the passion story is all about in the context of the rest of the Bible. the point of the Passion for Christians was to confront them with the cold hard facts about what Jesus went through for us, the torture you see him subjected to was completely based in historical fact, not saying there weren't other people that suffered the same cruel fate, but Jesus chose to do it and knew exactly what he was getting himself into. If you honestly thought this was a horrible film then you completely and utterly missed the point of it... you might as well have rented "little women" hoping for a Wayan Brother's comedy. To rate it a 0 or a 1 because you haven't bothered educating your own rear end about what it was you were viewing is pretty lame.
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May 10, 2004 06:22
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http://www.capalert.com/capreports/passionofthechrist.htm Capalert liked it. Reason enough to give it a 1.5/5 yes I did see it
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May 10, 2004 17:58
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The first rule of film should be: Anyone walking in off the street should be able to watch a film without any preconcieved notions or having to know anything about the plot beforehand. The Passion alienated a good portion of its audience by ASSUMING people knew who the characters were and had a general idea of Jesus' life. Beyond the lovely setup, this film bored and horrified me at the same time. Beating beating beating beating blood blood blood walking walking walking = hollywood blockbuster. This might be the ONLY movie that I would endorse enforcing the R rating to keep kids under 17 from seeing it. 1 / 5
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May 10, 2004 21:20
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I don't believe in Jesus, and this movie obviously takes faith to get something out of it. I thought, as it has obviously been mentioned, it is a long snuff film, and is way too violent for anything. 1/5
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May 10, 2004 22:10
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I'm no Christian, but I think the biggest thing wrong with this movie was that you felt all the pain and fear of Christ, but none of the love. Like binbinkurisama said, it's just a guilt trip. 1.5
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May 11, 2004 01:39
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so, did anyone else find the "jesus invents a new table" scene laughable? i thought the movie was ok, but that scene was just ABSURD. it was so loving stupid, its like mel was trying to make jesus look like a forward thinking inventor of modern day furniture. i saw the movie on a weekday a few weeks after release so the theatre was pretty empty, but it did get a chuckle from the few people in the theatre. i cant imagine what it would have been like in a huge crowd. lame lame lame, what the gently caress was mel thinking! braveheart was amazing! and yes, it seems as though people only pay attention to the idea that jesus died for our sins. and they forget completely about everything else he stood for. it amazes me how many christians are so bad at being christians. 2.5 Tremor Christ fucked around with this message at 23:01 on May 12, 2004 |
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May 12, 2004 22:58
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I'm not casting my vote on this movie, since I didn't actually watch it all the way through. I downloaded it and just sort of skipped around. It's way to loving dull, boring, and repetitive to watch from start to finish. The priest at my christian (Green Orthodox) church that my family goes to dislikes this movie greatly ("we should be focusing on Jesus's life and teachings, then the fact that he sacrificed for us because he loved us so much. The torture he went through before he died is next to irrelevant and not even really in the bible.").
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May 12, 2004 23:11
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I'm a stupid gently caress who shouldn't post.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 05:57 on May 19, 2004 |
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May 12, 2004 23:20
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I'm going to have to agree with almost everybody here. Just so you know SA isn't completely biased against this just because it's a Christian film, I am a Christian, and thought this movie was horrible, both as a movie and as a religous tool. The only meaning I got out of the movie was that people do sick things in the name of religion, and it makes me hate them. Absolutely awful movie, the only people who need to see it (hardcore fundies) already have.
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May 13, 2004 06:06
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The movie consisted entirely of Mr. Gibson reminding us that Jesus went through hell on earth, and then died for our sins. You'd think that sounds like a pro vote, but you're sorely mistaken. I'm not religious, so I went to this movie expecting something over the top and obviously biblical, aka taking reality's arm and twisting it till it breaks in 5 or so places. He was beaten to death several times over in a drab and boring movie. The directing sucked, no memorable shots. The idea of it being unsubbed originally would have been even more a travesty; with such average to poor direction, we'd have have no idea who Jesus or anyone else was. Three guys got crucified in the end, so not even then would we know. Well, the fountain of watery stuff that came ouf of the stabbed guy indicated--thanks to the aforementioned subs--that god's son retained about 10 gallons of water at all times. To say it had a story would be claiming that in the movie's length, something other than his beating happened--and nothing other than distractions did. There was nothing to this movie other than a notion that Jesus is real, and that you should be kissing his rear end right now. All the commentary about it's fame coming from religious controversey is agreed to by me, as there isn't a single other reason all copies weren't burned a week after release. .5/5, this waste of everybody's time is reason alone to forget who religious zealots think Jesus was, and then to erase his notion from history anyway.
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May 13, 2004 06:20
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I thought that this movie was strictly going for the shock factor. I thought it did a good job showing the pain that Jesus went through and basically got the story straight. It was really hard to sit through and I definitely felt that they should have shown more of his life than what they did.
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May 13, 2004 07:36
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i live in a very secular area, and so i never really saw this as a religious film. it's about a guy, and about relentless physical pain. i didn't have any problem with the gore, i was expecting to be more shocked than i was. i didn't have any problem with this being a non-traditional film, in fact that's a good thing. if you voted .5 because you wanted a standard 3 act story, that's fine, but it didn't bother me. i agree that the music could have been better, and the lighting was horribly meladramatic, but other than that, it's not a terribly flawed film. on the plus side, i've always been a big Jim Cazeviel fan, and i hope this film doesnt gently caress up his career (although he is getting weirder looking and might end up pulling a malcolm mcdowel or jon voight). also, it's a fascinating bit of historical filmmaking. i really loved the authenticity, the dusty, spare camera shots, the archaic languages. i won't ever watch it again, and the more i think about it, the more i realise that some parts were tv-movie-of-the-week-ish. mary and the roman soldiers come to mind. that would bother me on a re-viewing, but they didn't the first time. still, it was everything it needed to be. 3.5/5
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May 13, 2004 10:04
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I'm a Christian who thought it was good. If you're not a Christian, chances are you won't like it, especially if you've got antipathy towards Christianity like most of SA. (I love the "I didn't see it, .5" ratings)
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May 13, 2004 21:38
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I went to a christian high school, and although i am not christian, i cant understand how this trash movie can reaffirm your faith. If anything the only message i got from this movie was i hate romans. Thats it. For gibson to concentrate souly on the suffering and death of christ rather than the accomplishments and mericle of his life makes me question what his faith is like. 1/5
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May 19, 2004 00:11
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Well, I'll say it wasn't even violent enough to match the Bible. Mel actually toned down the violence of the death of Christ for the movie audiences. The movie actually just takes one day of a story line and puts some of it on film. I thought the film did it's job, and obviously if you're a Christian it means something to you. As a Christian, I'll vote it a 4/5.
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May 19, 2004 00:57
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There are a lot of good points about the violence level and comparing it to other films. The violence issue isnt so much a quantity issue as it is a quality issue. Horror and action movies tend to give you a break from the violence with a little comedic releif or just continue the story along for a awhile. The violence in the Passion of the Christ was nonstop, upclose, and personal. I found it disturbing and very hard to sit through. That it focused on the end of Jesus' life rather than his accomplishments was fine. There are other movies out there that explain about his miracles and his apostles. That being said, some background info on the others chars in the movie would have been nice. I think the movie named a total of 5 people, maybe less. Luckily for me, I have some knowledge of the life of Jesus, so it made more sense. That a christian background is required to fully understand this movie is fine. Take the scary movie trilogy, those movies are far better if you have seen the movies they make fun of. If you havent, much of those films will be lost on you. I give this movie a 2/5 mainly because it has no replay value. I sure as hell dont want to sit through it again.
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May 19, 2004 02:08
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I consider myself an amatuer theologian, so when I went to watch this movie I expected there to obviously be a little bit of negative Hollywood influence here. Sadly all I saw was the biggest flaming pile of poo poo someone could ever make about Jesus, that managed to explain almost nothing of importance to the audience regarding his life and work. Mel Gibson is a total and complete twat, and if you came out of this movie crying it better have been because you were mortified at how awful it was. Just when you think maybe someone could spread a wide message about what a cool guy Jesus was, and how if we all followed in his footsteps the world would be a better place, they turn it into blood-soaked travesty that totally missed the point. The only thing I was pleasently surprised about was the fact that they spoke in Aramiac and at least tried to be historically accurate. Also, I am not a Christian. 1/5
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May 19, 2004 23:37
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I was kind of weirded out by how brutally loving violent the movie was, but there was alot of cool stuff and you can totally overanalyze the movie. The satan-baby was cool, the zombie-kids and zombie-jesus bothering judas were cool, and the scene where the crow pecks at the convict's face is just loving awesome. I didn't necessarily like the loving HORRIFIC BRUTALITY but the cinematography was pretty loving cool. 3/5 for me.
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May 20, 2004 03:02
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Filming a movie of christ's death is like filming a movie of a man taking a poo poo. We know it happened, we know it was nasty, and there is no point otherwise. Also, it's nice to see Mel Gibson reignite anti-semetism with his lovely rear end movie. 0.5 out 5 manbabies
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May 20, 2004 03:16
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This was an excellent film. Gibson accurately portrayed what is written in the bible. Now, I have an appreciation for what is written in the Bible, so I appreciated the film. If you hate Christians, or have no interest in scripture, you probably won’t like the film. I don’t think Gibson was marketing the film to people who dislike its content, and have no wish to understand it. I hear people complain that the film is too long and that there should be more about Jesus’ message. Huh. I hear folks say that it was too violent. What was Gibson supposed to do? Break from the scripture that inspired it? Then the “Christian Zealots” it was directed at would be pissed that it wasn’t done right. (And those who don’t like Christians probably would still dislike it.) Mel knew that he could not please everyone, so he did what he thought was right; and apparently a few people did appreciate it. (It has grossed $600M worldwide.) My only criticism is that the music was horrible! I guess they had no choice, though, as there is no such thing as good Christian music. I give The Passion of the Christ a 4.5 / 5
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May 21, 2004 02:13
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If someone were to come up to me and ask me "would you enjoy watching Jesus getting the poo poo kicked out of him for 2 hours?" before seeing this, I would have more than likely said yes, that would hilarious, on with the show good man. But somehow Mel Gibson managed to bore me with the concept. No matter which way I look at this movie, as a learning tool, as pure comedy, or just as a movie on its own, it fails. It teaches us nothing we didn't know (i went to a catholic school), it doesn't reaffirm any values the catholics hold dear. All it tries to do is guilt you into going to church more often or something. It sucked.
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May 21, 2004 02:45
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quote:NovaHunter came out of the closet to say:
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May 21, 2004 09:23
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If you're not Catholic or Christian you might not like this movie. This movie does not have nothing to do with snuff. You people are getting the wrong ideas. You do need some bible background to understand the movie. The passion of christ is the meaning of "The Suffering of Christ". Which means he suffered for our sins. If he did not suffer for our sins, then we will all be screwed. Again you do need some bible understanding to get this movie. overall very good movie. 5.5
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May 24, 2004 20:21
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0.5/5. poo poo, dog poo poo. Above all, the movie was too long. Each scene dragged on for twice what it should have. The inclusion of satan at random points was fucktarded and made absolutely no sense. Roles were either horrendously overplayed or sadly wooden. The script was uninspired, and putting it in Aramaic with subtitles was a sad gimmick. Though I could understand everything they were saying without subtitles after about an hour, which was cool. When you consider the hype/delivery factor, this movie sucks more than Manos: Hands of Fate.
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May 25, 2004 04:43
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somebody should close this thread, it's the most asinine totally biased thing I may have ever seen anywhere. 90% of the posts/votes in here could be translated into "I hate christians, I'm too stupid to try and understand how anybody could like this movie and whether I've seen it or not I'm going to rate it a 0 just to be an ignorant rear end." I think you're just all pissed off that this movie didn't suck nearly as bad as you had hoped and a ton of people went to see it and it moved a lot of them.
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May 25, 2004 04:51
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 16:42 |
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All religion aside, you can look at the cinematography (top-notch), the art direction (masterwork, like an oil painting of film), the soundtrack (well-done) and the acting (very very convincing) and also the crew involved (dedicated as all hell) this movie is worth at least one view if you can stomach the violence. The movie was supposed to portray the passion during Jesus's last hours, and it does just what it sets out to and advertises, which in my opinion makes it a pretty good movie.
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May 25, 2004 05:09
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