I don't think this flick really adds anything substantial, new or fresh to the Splatter genre. The amount of extremely graphic, gory and sadistic violence is very high, even for a splatter movie, and Gibson directs it fairly well. What it lacks is giving any meaningful context to the gorefest that goes on and on (and on and on... and so on) after the introduction of the premise. I must admit that I am a bit biased - splatter is not one of my favorite genres, and I know many splatter fans don't see well-rounded characters or well-reasoned motivations really necessary in the genre.
What premise, you might ask. Basically, the lead character Jesus is a prophet and a leader of a religious sect, and (rightly) accused of claiming to be a son of a local god in the Roman province of Judea. Egged on by the powerful local religious fanatics, the prefect Pontius Pilate (as an aside, he is an actual historical person) sees no alternative to horrible abuse and execution of hapless Jesus, even though he doesn't really want it. Brutality ensues.
Cue a bunch of (over)long sequences of stomach-churning violence and a Sixth sense-like plot twist at the very end: It turns out Jesus really is a son of a local deity like he claimed, thus actually unkillable (at least permanently) and he gets the last laugh. I'm not too squeamish when it comes to unnecessary fictional violence, but this movie really pulls no punches. Eyeball-eating raven... huh? Was there a POINT to it, besides upping the gore factor with a random gross detail? Tooth for tooth, eye for being sarcastic to our protagonist? I hope there wasn't, because if Mr. Gibson thinks so, I feel for his close ones.
The script fails quite badly. As I mentioned earlier, the splatter elements lack meaningful context. It's difficult to actually care about Jesus' hard luck beyond the revulsion any normal human being feels for seeing senseless, brutal violence against anybody. The movie evokes some "emotions", true, but it does it much the same way porn does. Revulsion or sexual arousal does not equate emotional connection to a cardboard cut-out character you see on the screen. The bad guys (both the actual abusers and their enablers) are plot devices. The Pharisees do what they do to bring forward the violent climax of the story, believable or historically accurate reasons be damned. The sadistic soldiers are just doing their job, which is being sadistic soldiers.
All that lack of insight into the character is quite baffling, because the original source material does contain lots of useful things simply left out. The myth of Jesus has been published in a very popular anthology, which does in fact have four different versions with many interesting tidbits. If you read them, Jesus has an actual personality. He is even fairly interesting, prone to philosophical musings about ethics (book spoilers: he is pro-ethical behavior) that make him quite likable. If Gibson had bothered to use some of that, maybe it would have been possible to give an actual s..t about him.
But no such luck. Instead, the movie's plot focuses solely on (a very violent and unphilosophical depiction of) the silliest part of the story: the inexplicable need of Jesus to be beat up to a pulp and die painfully without really dying, for reasons of great quasi-philosophical importance. That wouldn't really matter so much if there was something else to the movie. Movies are all about the willing suspension of disbelief. With this one I find it hard, because the plot and characters are sub-standard. It's all right to have some silly or implausible plot point, practically every movie has one or two. But here the silly plot point has become the plot.
I feel actors do all right, considering what they have to work with. That side is a bit tricky to judge, because they are speaking in dead languages that they don't actually understand. But it seems natural enough. As for the "realistic" choice of using Aramaic, it feels like a gimmick here. Like performing Hamlet in Old Norse, because that's the language "the real Hamlet" used. Or at least would have used, if he had been real. Generally I'm in favor of using actual foreign languages (and actors fluent in those languages) instead of silly accents that denote "Right now I'm speaking in a foreign language", but it didn't feel necessary here. Gibson probably wanted the more gullible part of his audience confuse this stylistic realism with a proof of realism in his gory religious fantasies.
All in all, after reading glowing reviews how this technically rather well-made but plot less, pointless, soulless and extremely violent splatter flick was thought-provoking, beautiful, and what-not, I can only come up with one explanation: people who are familiar with the source material "see" things that Gibson omitted from his version. Both thematically and plot-wise. They superimpose their personal interpretations of the whole myth over this horror version of its climax. At least, I hope so. The alternative explanation would be quite depressing.
Oh, one more thing: the alleged antisemitic stuff in the movie was taken from the original myth. So don't shoot the messenger if the message isn't to your liking. Even if the message is to the messenger's liking. He's not responsible for the original message, he's just trying to milk the most out of it.
What premise, you might ask. Basically, the lead character Jesus is a prophet and a leader of a religious sect, and (rightly) accused of claiming to be a son of a local god in the Roman province of Judea. Egged on by the powerful local religious fanatics, the prefect Pontius Pilate (as an aside, he is an actual historical person) sees no alternative to horrible abuse and execution of hapless Jesus, even though he doesn't really want it. Brutality ensues.
Cue a bunch of (over)long sequences of stomach-churning violence and a Sixth sense-like plot twist at the very end: It turns out Jesus really is a son of a local deity like he claimed, thus actually unkillable (at least permanently) and he gets the last laugh. I'm not too squeamish when it comes to unnecessary fictional violence, but this movie really pulls no punches. Eyeball-eating raven... huh? Was there a POINT to it, besides upping the gore factor with a random gross detail? Tooth for tooth, eye for being sarcastic to our protagonist? I hope there wasn't, because if Mr. Gibson thinks so, I feel for his close ones.
The script fails quite badly. As I mentioned earlier, the splatter elements lack meaningful context. It's difficult to actually care about Jesus' hard luck beyond the revulsion any normal human being feels for seeing senseless, brutal violence against anybody. The movie evokes some "emotions", true, but it does it much the same way porn does. Revulsion or sexual arousal does not equate emotional connection to a cardboard cut-out character you see on the screen. The bad guys (both the actual abusers and their enablers) are plot devices. The Pharisees do what they do to bring forward the violent climax of the story, believable or historically accurate reasons be damned. The sadistic soldiers are just doing their job, which is being sadistic soldiers.
All that lack of insight into the character is quite baffling, because the original source material does contain lots of useful things simply left out. The myth of Jesus has been published in a very popular anthology, which does in fact have four different versions with many interesting tidbits. If you read them, Jesus has an actual personality. He is even fairly interesting, prone to philosophical musings about ethics (book spoilers: he is pro-ethical behavior) that make him quite likable. If Gibson had bothered to use some of that, maybe it would have been possible to give an actual s..t about him.
But no such luck. Instead, the movie's plot focuses solely on (a very violent and unphilosophical depiction of) the silliest part of the story: the inexplicable need of Jesus to be beat up to a pulp and die painfully without really dying, for reasons of great quasi-philosophical importance. That wouldn't really matter so much if there was something else to the movie. Movies are all about the willing suspension of disbelief. With this one I find it hard, because the plot and characters are sub-standard. It's all right to have some silly or implausible plot point, practically every movie has one or two. But here the silly plot point has become the plot.
I feel actors do all right, considering what they have to work with. That side is a bit tricky to judge, because they are speaking in dead languages that they don't actually understand. But it seems natural enough. As for the "realistic" choice of using Aramaic, it feels like a gimmick here. Like performing Hamlet in Old Norse, because that's the language "the real Hamlet" used. Or at least would have used, if he had been real. Generally I'm in favor of using actual foreign languages (and actors fluent in those languages) instead of silly accents that denote "Right now I'm speaking in a foreign language", but it didn't feel necessary here. Gibson probably wanted the more gullible part of his audience confuse this stylistic realism with a proof of realism in his gory religious fantasies.
All in all, after reading glowing reviews how this technically rather well-made but plot less, pointless, soulless and extremely violent splatter flick was thought-provoking, beautiful, and what-not, I can only come up with one explanation: people who are familiar with the source material "see" things that Gibson omitted from his version. Both thematically and plot-wise. They superimpose their personal interpretations of the whole myth over this horror version of its climax. At least, I hope so. The alternative explanation would be quite depressing.
Oh, one more thing: the alleged antisemitic stuff in the movie was taken from the original myth. So don't shoot the messenger if the message isn't to your liking. Even if the message is to the messenger's liking. He's not responsible for the original message, he's just trying to milk the most out of it.
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