The Passion of The Christ

Well tonight I got to see it- my first impression is that I think I expected too much. With all the stuff I read about people being very moved and "experiencing" the movie, I just did not come out of the theater feeling especially moved. This might be due to the fact that I turned away at many violent parts and may have missed some things. (I pretty much fast forwarded through Braveheart and Gladiator). Also, I have never been especially emotional in regards the Passion or spiritual things. The movie was well done and Jim Cavaziel was excellent as Jesus. The violence was a bit much at times, but not as wild as some critics made it seem. I could have done with less slow-motion and less subtitles. The ending seemed tacked on and I did not think it was done to the best effect. Overall though, the movie was very well done and I think I will see it again to see if I can get "into it" more the second time. Thank you Mel Gibson!

Random Thoughts:

The thing that annoyed me the most about the hype of the movie was that it really brought out the fact that many people are very anti-Christian. The letters to the editor in the major papers, some movie critics, the "professional" scholars, and some activists all seemed angry that a devout Catholic would dare to make a film. I have seen angry letters and columns bashing Christianity, Mel Gibson personally, the Gospels, etc.. At times it is amazing how far people would go to try to try to justify their own hatred and bigotry. One person wrote "Go away Mel Gibson and take your piety with you". I am glad The Passion of The Christ is doing so well because Gibson deserves a success after all that he has been through. The one thing that people agreed after seeing the film tonight is that people who claim the movie is anti-semitic or that it will lead to violence are just way off base. No one could think of why it would be seen as anti-semitic at all, but all agreed it was very anti-Roman in a way. Even there, it is not truly anti-Roman because it showed sadistic Roman soldiers, as everyone knows those guys were brutes and it does not follow that all Romans were brutes. I think some people who made accusations about the film are living on a different planet or in a different century or something. Now that I have seen the film it will be even more interesting to see the columns and the letters to the editor, etc..

I thought my occasional (recently more frequent) attendance at the traditional latin Mass would help me to understand a few phrases from the movie. Of course, the parts of the film that would have been in the Mass were in aramaic not latin. Oh well. I did notice that the subtitle translated the line as "for many" not "for all", which is a big argument in some places.


Contrary to Roger Friedman's claim that it would be hard for me to find the movie, since I live on the south shore of Nassau County, it only took me about 11.0 minutes to get to the theater. And this one was not the closest theater showing the movie! And this was in incredibly thick fog as well!!