The Passion rotten so far

[MrBaggins]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ThePassionoftheChrist-1129941/

Not a ton of reviews so far. The tomato meter is hovering just below fresh at 58% Cream of the crop however, paints a worse picture at 38%

Passion, by all accounts, isn't high quality film making... but then, it IS a Gibson film.

[Kaak]

seems the bad reviews are from christians who feel it wasn't "spiritual" enough. I think that's probably the way he meant it to be.

[Sava]

I didn't expect much from it... I'll see it (maybe a renter or a downloader ), but I'm not expecting a great flick.

personally, I think all the media attention about it is stupid

[Sava]

kaak, yer monkey (or whatever the hell that is) looks strangely similar to my greenspan

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Kaak
seems the bad reviews are from christians who feel it wasn't "spiritual" enough. I think that's probably the way he meant it to be.

Most bad reviews seem to be based on it being obtuse, and obsessively narrow...

E.G.

"A film so narrowly focused as to be inaccessible for all but the devout."
-- Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Mel Gibson shows once again that he's skilled at depicting violence. But you'd be hard pressed to find evidence of 'tolerance, love and forgiveness' that the producer-director-co-writer insists he's trying to communicate."
-- Gene Seymour, NEWSDAY

"The movie Gibson has made from his personal obsessions is a sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood, and agony."
-- David Denby, NEW YORKER

"Instead of being moved by Christ's suffering, or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins."
-- David Ansen, NEWSWEEK

[Imran Siddiqui]

It seems most are panning it because it has too much gore... Sava, you may want to check it anyway... lots of BLOOD!

[GePap]

Well, given that even God himself wanted to make the movie painful- the star got hit by lightning twice- we can blame Gibson only so far.

[Tripledoc]

Well, it is an arthouse movie, and seemingly quite nihilistic. That kind of movie never fare well among certain critics. Supposedly movies are not to portray real life, but rather serve as some sort of pain relief.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Well, it is an arthouse movie, and seemingly quite nihilistic. That kind of movie never fare well among certain critics. Supposedly movies are not to portray real life, but rather serve as some sort of pain relief.

Rubbish...

Take "Reservior Dogs" or "The Butcher Boy"... just off the top of my head. Both nihilistic, arthouse movies, that fared very well with those (and other) critics.

[Tripledoc]

I don't know the movie "The Butcher Boy", but I don't think that Reservor Dogs recieved allround good reviews when it was first released. And if it did it was probably because of its entertainment value (for instance the "violence is cool" factor). Or later when it became fashionable to grovel to Tarantino's supposed genius. In fact Reservoir Dogs was a remake of a little known Asian action flick. Furthermore RD can't possibly be concieved as an arthouse movie. A low budget movie perhaps. So no comparison is possible.

With regard to the Passion if Christ, what most critics diagree with is excessive gore in a movie that is not 'entertaining'.

[joncha]

Ebert and not-Siskel both really liked it, if that means anything.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/cst-ftr-passion24.html

http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cst-nws-roep24.html

jon.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
I don't know the movie "The Butcher Boy", but I don't think that Reservor Dogs recieved allround good reviews when it was first released. And if it did it was probably because of its entertainment value (for instance the "violence is cool" factor). Or later when it became fashionable to grovel to Tarantino's supposed genius. In fact Reservoir Dogs was a remake of a little known Asian action flick. Furthermore RD can't possibly be concieved as an arthouse movie. A low budget movie perhaps. So no comparison is possible.

With regard to the Passion if Christ, what most critics diagree with is excessive gore in a movie that is not 'entertaining'.

Uh??

Reservior Dogs was a sleeper hit at Sundance, and had an extremely limited arthouse (19 theatres in the US) release in October 92... which sold out in most engagements (due to critical aclaim and word of mouth in film schools,) but it did only about 2.8 million domestically due to the microscopic size of release that year. It showed on a tiny number of screens, but retained enough popularity to stay, sold out, in many of those theatres for years, and obviously be a video DVD hit too... but only after Tarrantino's work became mainstream with the release of Pulp Fiction.

You could hardly claim that the critical reception of the movie had anything to do with Tarrantino's reputation, since he didn't have a reputation when RD's was released.

Reservoir Dogs borrowed from, but did not entirely copy City on Fire and a number of other Hong Kong films, but did introduce a number of original elements, and being unoriginal is hardly new... pretty much every story or film just rehashes stuff thats come before.

The Passion of Christ is being sold as an Epic Blockbuster.. and has a 3000 screen release... and I don't think there is any way you can spin that into being an arthouse picture.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
The Passion of Christ is being sold as an Epic Blockbuster.. and has a 3000 screen release... and I don't think there is any way you can spin that into being an arthouse picture.

That's a good point.

Having read some more reviews, it seems that the Passion of Christ is perhaps more of an A-grade horror movie.

What can be gleaned from still photos the cinematography looks stunning, and Satan is truly scary. Presented as a bald pale woman. (I wonder how feminists will react to that?)
The Roman costumes look right.

Still the main problem the negative reviewers have is with the excess gore. Some reviewers rant on with regards to the political aspects, which I think has already been discussed endlessly. One reviewer thinks it impossible that Christ could have suvived so much torture before being put on a cross. I guess that is good point.

[MrBaggins]

I agree with what you're saying. I think this film is going to do a lot of business... $150M (20-35 opening 3 day plus a 6 multiplier) domestically... and maybe as much as double that theoretically.

It, essentially, seems to me, a film about violence, that also has Christian characters in it, and is a bible story, rather than the other way around...

There seems to be some hypocracy here: Christian groups, for years and years have been criticizing violence in movies... but they're just gushing over this one.

I, for one, don't get it.

Violence in movies doesn't bother me, but I wouldn't go to see a movie thats only attraction was violence... if you take the violence out, would there still be a compelling story? I think The Passion of the Christ, from the look of things would be a shell without that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There seems to be some hypocracy here: Christian groups, for years and years have been criticizing violence in movies... but they're just gushing over this one.

Indeed. That is amusing, isn't it?