It is, when all is said and done, only a movie.
A profoundly medieval movie, yes. Brutal almost beyond powers of description, yes. More obsessed with capturing every holy drop of martyr's blood and sacred gobbet of flesh than with any message of Christian love, yes. More than anything, "The Passion of the Christ," which opens tomorrow, seems to be exactly the movie Mel Gibson wanted to make as an abiding profession of his traditionalist Catholic faith. On that score it is a success.
If "Passion" is powerful, though, it is only through the bludgeoning, forensic intensity with which the film dwells on Christ's suffering. If you come seeking theological subtlety, let alone such modern inventions as psychological depth, you'll walk away battered and empty-handed. Focusing his story on the last days of Jesus (Jim Caviezel), Gibson has created the most visually realistic re-creation yet of the Stations of the Cross -- with subtitled dialogue in Latin and Aramaic and a few heavy-handed "artistic" touches daubed on -- but one that is finally as reductive as any small-town Passion play or Classics Illustrated Jesus. Believers will disagree (if they're even still reading this review) but "The Passion" is a must-see only as a cultural talking-point, not as a spiritual milestone.
Two quick observations: First, hateful idiots may take Gibson's depiction of the Jewish priests of the Sanhedrin maneuvering for Christ's execution as incitement, but "The Passion" is not in itself anti-Semitic (although I personally might have cast someone other than the sneering nasty who plays Caiaphas's second banana). There's enough sin to go around, and Gibson spreads it liberally: While Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) is depicted as a harried branch manager for the Roman Empire trying to stave off an uprising, his centurions come off as bloodthirsty apes. Who's responsible for Christ's death? We all are, says Gibson, and proceeds to rub our noses in it.
Second, any parent -- no matter how devout and well-intentioned -- who takes a child to this movie is guilty of abuse. Period.
"The Passion of the Christ" opens in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is in despair over the torments he knows are coming. Hovering around the edges is the first of Gibson's missteps: Satan, who with his black cloak and mime-white face resembles a Eurotrash descendant of Ingmar Bergman's Death in "The Seventh Seal." Judas (Luca Lionello) leads the priest's guards in for the betrayal; he has already received his 30 pieces of silver, tossed to him in a portentous slow-motion arc, and it quickly becomes clear that Gibson is harnessing the language of blockbuster Hollywood cinema to reach the back rows of the theater. This is middlebrow filmmaking, and not without impact.