I finally got to see The Passion of the Christ this week. I think that I can only describe this movie in my opinion in two different ways.
Theatrically, this movie was extremely violent, very intense, and very solemn. There were a lot of amazing special effects to bring the realism of this event to a new level. It was exceedingly graphic and detailed when showing the climatic scenes and very emotional the rest of the time. It’s not like most movies that I watch in the theaters.
Religiously, this movie was unbelieveable. I sat there during the whole thing thinking about what I had read and what I know (this coming from someone who hasn’t brushed up on that event in a while) and everything happened as I remember from teachings in Sunday School or Bible Studies. There were also many words and actions which I remember being discussed when talking about the Catholics.
If you remember the stations of the cross, this movie was pretty much a long visual explanation of these events. Most of those things which I didn’t know could have been a Catholic teaching that I never studied being that this was derived from a Catholic man . . . except, that is, if I didn’t remember everything because of my spotty knowledge of the Bible anyway.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie on a similar level that I enjoyed Shindler’s List. It’s not a movie that you want to see every day because of its intensity but something that you’ll always remember about the event of which is vehemently portrayed.
I don’t understand the outrage from a few reviewers, especially Eric Harrison of the Houston Chronicle. Out of the five ratings to give this movie, he chose an F. I think this movie was much better than an F. An F movie describes Batman and Robin, which I turned off after a few minutes. I call other movies an F but I haven’t bothered watching too many other F movies. Batman and Robin compared to the Passion? Hardly.
According to Eric, this movie “speaks solely to the converted”; then why is there a lot more talk of religious based movies?
If I were to criticize anything about this movie, I’d agree with Eric that the torture was overly graphic. It seemed like those guys beating Jesus decided that He was a piece of clay that they could mold with their sticks and whips. Almost vomit inducing at times.
The Passion, in my opinion, gives a nice understanding of what His sacrifice was to humankind. The point was made very clearly.