The Baltimore Sun and The Passion
As of right now, The Passion is listed as the worst currently playing movie by the Baltimore Sun, with 1.5 stars. By comparison, other movies are rated as follows:
- Twisted: 4 stars
- Osama: 3 stars
- The Fog of War: 4 stars
- The Triplets of Belleville: 4 stars
- Barbershop 2: 4 stars
- Welcome to Mooseport: 2 stars
- 50 First Dates: 3 stars
Of course, no one is required to like The Passion. The movie is also by no means perfect, and there are things to criticize in it. But, when Welcome to Mooseport gets a better rating, even by 1/2 a star, this is a little suspicious.
What makes me even more skeptical is that I honestly had a really difficult time seeing how much of the Sun's review simply didn't like either Christians ("fundamentalist Christians who go to family films or to none at all") or the original source material ("the most blatant white-robe/black-robe melodrama: Jesus against the sadists and quislings of a whole world ripe for Satan's plucking"). I could not understand how much of the review came from the reviewer's own beliefs about Jesus and how much was actually about the quality of the movie itself.
It would be one thing for the Sun to say something like, "the story of the Passion of Jesus is of immense importance to Christian believers throughout the world. Therefore it deserves better treatment than what Gibson gave it." But, I've seen very little that falls in that category.
This makes me wonder if it is even possible to evaluate the movie apart from one's own religious presuppositions. For example, one of the most widespread criticisms is that it overstates, or over-dwells on, the violence done to Christ. To liberal Christian theology, this is a valid criticism, because Christ was primarily a good man who taught us how to live better and be better people. The problem is that, to orthodox Christian theology, the primary purpose for Christ to come to this earth was to suffer and die as a ransom for sins so that he might redeem the world; there is then almost no way to overstate the suffering of Christ.
The counterexample to this is Ebert and Roeper, who, I believe, do not profess to be Christians at all, but still thought the movie was excellent.
I'm genuinely curious to know what others think about this. From what I've seen, comment requests usually don't work well, but if anyone feels so inclined, please chip in with your 2 cents.
February 27, 2004 03:28 PMGranted I haven't seen it yet, going to tomorrow. I think you've got the nail on the head thingy. My only problem is that from a former Roman Catholic standpoint, I find that the movie may, granted haven't seen, focus too much on the death, and not enough on the resurrection. We both know that Christ came to die, but he also conquered death, something Catholics tend i think to forget or not care about. Its like showing a man who went on a diet, but only showing the before picture. IF that makes sense, probably doesn't but to elaborate. ITs like "This man lost tons of weight, you don't see it from this before picture but believe me, he lost it! He's 200 lbs overweight here but now he's a slim 165 (thats slim to me, man i'd love to be that). With no view of the after part its like, "Did he die and thats it?" Granted I think this movie will and does and has gone over most non-christians heads. But now i ramble, but then again it says ramblings so I guess I've accomplished my mission... or is it your mission. Well its somebody's mission.
Pondered by holton at February 27, 2004 04:28 PMAlso Mooseport looks like a dumb made for tv movie. emphasis on the dumb
Pondered by holton at February 27, 2004 04:29 PMThere seems to be a pretty strong undercurrent of disapproval that has little to do with quality. I've been thinking about this and have some theories.
I may post on this shortly...
