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For
starters, Planet Sick-Boy isn't buying into the endless (and
endlessly unnecessary) hype surrounding Mel Gibson's The
Passion of the Christ.
To us, it's just another screen adaptation of a book we
didn't read. In
terms of films based upon outlandish stories, we're way more
worried about how Alfonso Cuarón is going to handle the next Harry
Potter movie.
The
Passion is Gibson's follow-up to Braveheart (a very good
thing - it was one of only three deserving Best Picture winners
over the last 15 or so years), but it's also no less of a
religious pet project than Battlefield
Earth (a really bad thing – it was one of the worst
movies ever made). We're
not going to talk about Gibson's agenda, or whether The
Passion is, intentionally or not, offensive to any
particular sect.
The
Passion
begins hours after the Last Supper before dragging us through
the first 13 stations of the cross.
Jesus (James Caviezel, High
Crimes) is sold out by Judas (Luca Lionello) for 30
shekels, instantly tried by a kangaroo court that alternately
beat, spit on and flayed him practically beyond recognition
while the Marys (Maia Morgenstern and Monica Bellucci) watched
helplessly in horror. It's
the kind of sentence we'd like to see leveled at the Enron
clowns (now there’s something worth getting riled
over). The
repetition made me have Return
of the King flashbacks.
If
you're into two hours of watching a guy beaten and whipped to
the verge of death, more power to you, because that's about all The
Passion is, aside from a handful of flashbacks to happier,
less bloody times, as well as a couple of creepy Satan scenes
that look like they were lifted from Carnivŕle. Somehow,
I doubt the Hardcore Sadism section at Blockbuster sees too much
browsing by practicing Catholics, which makes me wonder who
exactly the target audience of The Passion might be.
If you're that devout, you know you're going to be upset
by it. Why pay a
bunch of money to get all flustered when you can just stay home
and watch people argue about gay marriage on MSNBC?
And if someone out there thinks non-believers will be
swayed into tithing because of this movie, I've got some magic
beans I'd like to sell them.
To
me, there's absolutely no difference between the religious
zealots in the film who scream for Jesus's death and the
real-life people four-walling entire theatres to see The
Passion with their flock. There is, however, great irony in the fact that these same
people who were gesticulating until their arms fell off when
their kids saw Janet Jackson's boob pop out are going to drag
those same kids to one of the most graphically violent films
ever made. Granted,
it's pretty and carefully framed, but it's horrifying to watch.
And since The Passion is subtitled, you'd be
better off bringing in headphones and listening to Peter
Gabriel's soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ (a
much better film with far superior music, in my opinion).
Experts
are quick to herald Gibson's painstaking authenticity, without
realizing the real JC probably wasn't a white dude like Caviezel. Although under all of that blood, who could tell? Hey, at
least Mary doesn't have blue eyes.
Also fun, Gibson's casting rule:
The uglier the character, the more evil they are (just
like real life!). My
favorite part was when the screen went black and silent after
the crucifixion, and for a couple of seconds, I thought there
was going to be epilogue text along the lines of "Jesus
came back from the dead three days later.
He's currently living with his faithful Collie, Skip, in
Pomona, where he makes tongue-in-groove furniture, just like
Harrison Ford used to do."
| 2:06
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for
sequences of graphic violence |
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