Here is the third and final review in my trinity of Jesus movie reviews for Easter. edit 4/3/2013: added a brief sentence about Jesus having his arm dislocated, and how it might directly contradict John's gospel.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, like The Last Temptation, was met with a lot of controversy due to its excessive violence and allegations of anti-Semitism (although I don't remember it being picketed). The film is loosely based on the gospels and The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Anne Catherine Emmerich, a Catholic mystic. Several of the over-the-top torture scenes actually come from Emmerich and not from the Bible. The movie also has all the characters speaking in Aramaic and Latin with subtitles, to make it feel more “real.”

Here's my own history with TPOTC. I first saw the movie in theaters back in 2004 with a Christian youth group at my church. I remember being really disturbed by all the violence in the film. At the same time I was also confused by all the protests against the movie. Why were there people that blamed the Jews for killing Jesus? Wasn't it the Romans that did it? It wasn't until I actually read the New Testament that I learned it does say in a few places that the Jewish leaders tried to kill Jesus, and there are some places where the authors directly implicate them for the crucifixion, such as in 1st Thessalonians 2:14-16 (although Bible scholars believe that this verse is an interpolation later inserted into the epistle). And it was horrifying for me learning about how these passages would be used to justify anti-Semitism throughout history. So Gibson depicting the Jewish leaders as having a role in Jesus' crucifixion wasn't made up out of whole cloth. However, in this review I will be judging this movie purely on its merits and not on the controversy or Mel Gibson's, ahem, “personal issues.”

The movie opens with a brief quote from Isaiah 53, and then we cut to the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus agonizing over what is about to come. Jesus is played by Jim Caviezel, so I will call his portrayal “Jim Jesus.” We then cut to Judas Iscariot making his deal with the Jewish leaders to help them find Jim Jesus, and for some reason there's a dramatic slow motion shot when they throw the 30 pieces of silver to him. We cut back to Jim Jesus in the garden, and Satan appears to him in the form of a strange androgynous person in a cloak, asking if he really can bear all the sins in the world. Satan is actually played by a woman named Rosalinda Celentano, but the way she's made up, you can't really tell. Her appearance definitely falls into Uncanny Valley territory. Jim Jesus ignores Satan and continues praying for relief. A snake slithers from under Satan's robes and crawls towards Jim Jesus, but Jim Jesus just crushes it underfoot (a reference to Genesis 3:15) Satan disappears and then Judas and the Jewish leaders appear to arrest Jim Jesus.

Judas kisses Jim Jesus, and for some reason Mel Gibson uses dramatic slow motion again on the kiss. There's more dramatic slow motion with the Jewish leaders walking towards Jim Jesus (boy, Gibson really likes his slow motion) and then there's a brief fight scene between several disciples and the guard, ending when Peter strikes the ear off one guard which Jim Jesus heals. Jim Jesus is then arrested, and as he's being dragged off, the guards hit him, and then hang him off a bridge with their chains. It's going to be a bit hard to describe scenes in this movie without writing “Jim Jesus gets beaten” over and over. While Jim Jesus is hanging from the bridge, Judas catches a glimpse of him, and then suddenly an orc jumps out and scares Judas… Or something. I'm not sure how to describe this creature Judas sees.

Jim Jesus is taken to the temple to be put on trial before Caiaphas and the Jewish leaders, and Judas sees what's going on and feels remorseful. In case it wasn't clear enough that Caiaphas and the Jewish leaders are EVIL, they're all wearing ornate black and gold robes and are played by stern looking old men. To drive the point further, when one of the guards punches Jim Jesus in the face, there's reaction shot on Caiaphas that shows him trying to restrain a sadistic smile. The mob shouts many accusations at Jesus, but the Jewish leaders aren't satisfied with how contradictory they are. But when Jim Jesus declares the name I AM during questioning (a reference to the translation of YHWH, “I am what I am,” basically saying he's divine), that's all the Jewish leaders need to implicate him. Caiaphas reacts to Jim Jesus' proclamation by tearing his robes. So he's evil AND a drama queen! The Jewish leaders take turns beating and spitting on Jim Jesus, and then we get Peter's three denials. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot the other disciples asides from Judas Iscariot are in this movie too. If you're a disciple other than Judas, Peter, or John in this film, you're SOL and are practically cameos.

We then see Judas throw his silver back at the Jewish leaders, and… it's not shot in slow motion like before! What gives? This then leads to one of the weirdest sequences in the movie, in which several children approach Judas and start harassing and chasing him, while their faces become deformed. They chase him into the wilderness and Satan appears briefly, implying this is all really a demonic attack. The children disappear, and Judas notices a dead, rotting donkey with a rope on it. Judas uses the rope to hang himself on a nearby tree.

We then see Jim Jesus' trial before Pontus Pilate. And the questioning between them is shot very dramatically, with creepily ominous music in the soundtrack. We then get the second weirdest scene in the movie in which Jim Jesus is put on trial before Herod, who looks like a Jewish drag queen. We also see Pilate arguing with his wife Claudia, uncertain whether or not he should punish Jim Jesus to stop Jewish riots. Finally Pilate offers to free a prisoner, and the crowd demands they release a murderer named Barabbas rather then Jesus. When Barabbas hears that the crowd wants him released, he giggles as if it's his birthday. The crowd then demands to have Jim Jesus crucified, but Pilate opts to just have Jim Jesus scourged.

The Romans chain Jim Jesus to a stone pillar, and a close up on Jim Jesus' face shows him with a stern, stoic expression. We then watch Jesus get whacked with rods. And he is whacked, and whacked, and whacked some more. While the Jewish leaders watch Jesus get tortured, Satan appears briefly behind them, watching emotionlessly. Jim Jesus is whacked for nearly a minute and a half (yes, I decided to keep track of how long some of the torture scenes were), and then when he shows that he can still stand, the soldiers take out scourging weapons and scourge him. They scourge, scourge, and scourge more. I remember when I first saw this sequence in the theaters, it was just unbearable, and even today it's still hard for me to watch (incidentally, I have read that Jim Caviezel accidentally got hit for real from one of the weapons while filming this scene and now he has a big scar on his back). Jim Jesus' mother Mary watches in the audience, weeping at what's going on, and there's a short scene that is both touching and heart wrenching when Claudia appears and gives Mary towels to clean the blood. In all, Jim Jesus is beaten for three minutes straight, including the cutaways to Mary in which you're just hearing the scourges off screen. They then release one of Jim Jesus' arms from the stone pillar he's chained to and it looks like they might finally let him go… only to continue scourging him for another 2 minutes. Satan appears again to watch, this time carrying an ugly baby that makes a creepy grin, making this the third weirdest scene in the movie. I had no clue what was up with this ugly baby when I first saw the movie until it was explained to me years later in a confirmation class that it was supposed to represent the anti-Christ. Finally another soldier says to stop the punishment and Jim Jesus is dragged off, with an unrealistically large amount of blood and carnage leftover, followed by the crown of thorns being put on him.

We then come to one of the most controversial scenes in the movie. The Jewish leaders aren't satisfied with Jim Jesus' punishment and demand again to have him crucified, and Pilate caves in. Mel Gibson reportedly dropped the infamous line attributed to the Jewish leaders from Matthew's gospel “His blood be upon us and our children!” from the film, although I've heard Jewish critics of the movie like Rabbi Tovia Singer allege the line is still present but it's not subtitled. I can't be sure though since I don't know Aramaic, but I did notice a line Caiaphas says around 1 hour 12 minutes that isn't subtitled. Could this be it?

We then watch Jim Jesus carry his cross, complete with close ups of his bloody face and flashbacks to when he rode into Jerusalem, and an occasion when Mary saw Jim Jesus as a child falling over and helping him. Satan appears again in the crowd to watch, still showing no emotion (but no creepy baby with him). When I was watching this movie for the first time, I kept in mind the stations of the cross and counted how many times Jim Jesus fell… and for some reason Gibson decided to have him fall six times rather than three. I'm guessing these extra falls come from Emmerich's writings. The sequence of carrying the cross (including flashbacks) lasts 20 minutes in all. Finally Jim Jesus is crucified (Mel Gibson himself is the one hammering the nails into Jim Jesus' hands. And Jim Caviezel nearly got struck by lighting once during the filming of the scenes of him on the cross). However, Jim Jesus' right arm isn't long enough to reach where it's supposed to be nailed, so the roman soldiers pull it to the point of being dislocated. Once again, this is a detail that comes from Emmerich and not the Bible. John's gospel actually says that no bones of Jesus were meant to be broken, but since dislocating isn't quite the same as breaking, I guess this is a loophole Emmerich and Gibson can take refuge in.

After Jim Jesus is nailed and we get a few more flashbacks and then see one of the thieves get gouged by a raven. The movie goes into montage mode to represent time passing, looking at the cloudy sky interspersed with shots of Jim Jesus on the cross. It occurs to me watching this that movie adaptations of the gospels must have a hard time with the crucifixion, since much of it is just Jim Jesus hanging up there and nothing much really happens other then conversations he has before his death. Finally Jim Jesus gives up his spirit and a terrible earthquake occurs, complete with a shot inside the Jewish temple being torn asunder inside and the veil to the Holy of Holies ripping and falling over. After a soldier pierces Jim Jesus' side to make sure he's dead and we see the Jewish leaders devastated at their temple being broken, we then see Satan make a skyward scream in hell! This scene may actually exceed the weirdness of Herod being a Jewish drag queen, the anti-Christ baby, and the demonic children chasing Judas. Afterward Jesus is taken down from the cross and the movie fades out… and then flashes forward to show Jesus alive again and leaving his tomb while butt naked

Wow. This was definitely the hardest movie to sit through of the three. All snark aside at some of Gibson's weird creative choices in a few parts, the acting across the board is all done pretty well, even if it’s in languages I don’t understand. It is shot pretty well too. Who would I recommend this to? Well, if you've read Anne Catherine Emmerich, or if you want to see a movie reminding you of Jesus' suffering, or if you're a fan of movies like the Saw series, I guess this movie might be for you. If you'd like an adaptation of Jesus' life that doesn't focus so much on violence and has more of his teachings, the 1979 Jesus film would probably be a better choice to watch.

After seeing The Last Temptation and The Passion one after the other, I have to wonder one last thing regarding the controversies that surround both movies. How come you’ll get hounded for making a movie in which Jesus has sex (even if it’s a dream), but people will love you if you show him getting beaten to a bloody pulp?