The Passion of the Christ
RATING: 4/10

Review Date:        February 28, 2004
Director:             Mel Gibson
Writers:              Benedict Fitzgerald / Mel Gibson
Actors:                Jim Caviezel as Jesus
                             Monica Bellucci as Magdalene
                             Maia Morgenstern as Mary
Audience of Choice:                 Religous
Year of Release:     2004

STORYLINE: A view into the final days of Jesus and his sufferings.

Disclaimer: I completely feel that how anyone takes this movie, whether to the heart, or to the gutter, fully depends on who they are
as people. Meaning, it has to do with religous background, age, parents, and things of that nature. I have met and know many people who
loved the film, and other who hated it. It all depends on what they get out of it. My review simply explains what I got out of it, and it
isn't meant to offend anyone or their religion. If I at all sound like I don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I really
don't. Thank you.

MY REVIEW: When Mel Gibson made this film, he had a plan. He wanted to tell the story through his own eyes. He suceeded in doing
exactly what he was trying to do, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Mel Gibson made such a brutal and disgusting film that it was to
the point of being unbearable to watch. Again, this is intended, but it was very hard to get connected to someone when
the only thing being shown is his sufferings. We don't see any of what he did to deserve his punishment, or how he didn't deserve it,
or what good came out of him sacrifing his life. The only thing we see is him suffering for two hours.

    I am not a religous person, so certainly many religous men and women would fully grasp the idea behind this movie, but why would Mel
Gibson make a movie for the people who already fully know the story. I figured the point of a movie was to tell a story, but I only got
half of a story, and that half consisted of Jesus being brutaly beaten for the entire movie. And when I say brutal, I really
mean brutal.

    I was beyond the point of disgusted. The movie was so horribly gory that we start to forget about what is going on, and just
think about this man being horribly beaten for reasons not shown. We see his entire body getting slashed into and torn apart. His skin
is soaked in blood, and pieces of flesh are hanging off his body. I actually didn't believe some of the makeup effects, but that
was mostly because Gibson was trying to make it look as gruesome as possible, and even though he did, everything that
happened was physically impossible. He lost the amount of blood as maybe three or four men, and even after he is dead,
he still has wet blood on him and pours out blood too. First of all, no blood would be left to pour out. Second of all, the blood would
not be wet, it would be dry and crusted. And since we are on the matter of flaws in the movie. Here's something many know, you
cannot crucify somebody through the hands, because they would just slide off through the meat. You have to do it through the wrists,
because there are two bones to hold the person in place. Further continuing my rant, there is a scene where his blood is dripping
off the nail through the wood. Blood can't drip through a foot of wood, even if there was a tiny gap from the nail. The movie is
so incredibly gratuitous, I started to wonder what the hell Gibson was trying to do. The noises made by the whips sounded worse
than what they would have sounded like in real life, too. There were so many irritating mistakes in the movie that is was hard to
keep track of them all. If there is one type of movie when mistakes aren't allowed, it's when the movie is about religion. Action
movie mistakes, who cares. Sci-fi, no problem. Comedy, whatever can make us laugh. Religous movie, err....mistake = death! I'm exaggerating
of course. I have actually made a short film, and know how easy it is to make mistakes. But the mistakes in The Passion are thought
out mistakes which Gibson thought would have great reactions of the audience as he intended. I actually have many more complaints
about what Gibson did purely for effect, but I'm going to stop here.

    Instead, I'm going to focus on a huge theme in the movie: Love thy neighbor, Love thy enemy, too. A big theme in the movie was to
love your enemies, and one thing that was blatantly obvious was all the people who wronged Jesus seemed to get what they deserved
in the end. Judas was chased by demon children and hung himself, a man who laughed at Jesus got his eye torn out by a crow, and many
more. And I'm contrasting this with the people who didn't betray Jesus. One man says to Jesus to remember that he was there and did not
wrong him, and Jesus says he will be welcomed into paradise. The movie's main idea contradicted itself by doing the opposite of what it
was trying to tell us. When the movie finished, I only had one thought in my mind; this should be called "Mel Gibson's The Passion
of the Christ".

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