Casual Critic Mini Reviews

The Passion of the Christ (USA) (Icon/Newmarket) (2004) **Year: 2004iMDB

Director: Mel Gibson Cast: James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci

Mel Gibson's superproduction managed, of course, to be a huge financial success, and to some degree even critical success. The former obviously comes from the well-planned controversial nature of the movie, including requests for ban by jewish groups, supposed endorsement by the Vatican. The latter stems from the artsy ambitions of the movie, spoken entirely in the dead Aramaic language, and relying on well studied long shots of Christ's wounds or of people's faces full of compassion or hatred.

However, in the end, the message of the movie, the tale of the altruistic sacrifice that Christ did for the men that were repenting him, is lost in a bath of blood so gory and so long that it destroys the message managing to almost desensitize the viewer.