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So, due to all the hype and outrage surrounding this movie, Zack and I got curious and decided to see it. Cinematically, it looks very nice. In terms of entertainment value and thrall, it rather fails. This is not an uplifting story of Jesus. It's two hours of watching Jesus get beaten practically to death and then crucified. At first the violence is kind of shocking and horrifically engaging, but ultimately, you just disconnect. You can only watch the same thing happen over and over again a few times before you've had enough and it gets boring and repetitive. And if you're me, after a while the Roman flunkies who are flailing Jesus just start looking more and more comically like the winged monkeys from the Wizard of Oz who attack the Scarecrow and pull out his stuffing.
Before going to see this someone was commenting on the hypocrisy of liking Saving Private Ryan, with its horrifically violent opening sequence, and not liking The Passion of Christ. Having seen both, I understand liking Saving Private Ryan and not liking this movie. In the end, Saving Private Ryan is uplifting. The Passion of the Christ is like waiting for a catharsis that never comes. Part of the story of Jesus' crucifixion, is his subsequent resurrection, and what happens after that. What you have here is a gruesome depiction of the flailing and crucifixion of Christ, with little else of his story. The different perspectives shown on it are interesting, but ultimately, the primary focus is the raw violence committed against him. There is so much more to the story of Christ than the brutal, horrible way he died. Yes, his death is a pivotal part of his story, his life, and his legacy; however, personally, I did not need to sit through his suffering in graphically long, bloody detail.
Would I recommend you see this? No, not really. It does not entertain, and perhaps that was its intention. But I was bored, nauseous, depressed, and completely turned off by this movie. As I told Zack at the end of this, "You owe me a happy movie next time."
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