One review of the Son of God movie
General Comments
The life and death and resurrection of Jesus is a gripping, emotionally-charged and compelling story. It’s hard to screw up, it’s always going to be effective since it’s so much content.
“Son of God” comes across as a pallid, low-budget copy of “The Passion of The Christ.” It just seems cheaper. The script has weak points, the characters seem mismatched.
Jesus
I think it’s reasonable to think of Jesus as a small, brownish man. Instead, we have a tall white guy with an English nose, who speaks in a kind of English accent (I imagine the character was working to reduce it a bit).
The actor was always smiling and grinning. Tough complaint to make, but I have a hard time imaging Jesus actually grinning 100% of the time.
He has a hard time doing a convincing job of delivering his lines. Sometimes this comes across as mere recitation. Gets a B.
John
The life story of Jesus is told ostensibly through John, at least at the start and end of the movie. John is far too old here, and the “beloved disciple” who is young doesn’t come across here.
The actor’s good; rates an A-.
Peter
Peter is the standout in the film. Does a wonderful job. A.
Mary
Contemporary hair.
Mary Magdalene
Makes an odd presence since she’s always with the disciples. I deeply wonder whether this would have happened then: one woman always hanging out with a dozen men. I don’t think propriety would be so shirked. She’s also very young; far from the hardened whore one might imagine her to be. Very high-school looking.
Thomas
Thomas is that kind of skeptical high school English teacher who’s maybe a bit mean. Here he is an Anglo, with blue eyes, in ancient Jerusalem. Go figure. Maybe captured by pirates and skivvied away from Mother England and planted in the mideast? As an actor, does a fine job, rates an A. (Whoever ran casting for the movie did a poor job).
Judas
Okay performance, does the deal. Could have done better, but this was the scriptwriter’s fault. B
Matthew
One of the gripping scenes was Jesus talking about tax collectors and winning over Matthew. Actor earns an A for his performance here.
Pontius Pilate
OK. We get the “hard guy” idea pretty fast with this fellow, but he turns it into stagey camp. I think this whole “Roman as Creepy Mean Guy” is a 1960s television stereotype. The PP in the Passion movie comes across more realistic: showing the veteran warrior/judge aspect.
Pontius Pilate’s wife
Is the name Portia? At any rate, clearer the weakest actor in the movie. Works hard to pull a C. Almost distractingly poor.
Head Priest
Excellent job here. One of the few strengths of the movie is presenting some conjectures about how Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem may have been understood in terms of its practical impacts on Jews. Having seen a great deal of Roman-smashing-Jews violence, the head priest wants to ward this off. . . meaning he feels he must stop Jesus and Jesus demonstrations.
Holy Eucharist
To my mind, one great problem with presenting a movie on Jesus is all the weird Protestant stuff that crops up since the time of Luther. Various theories, etc., which are relatively recent in Christian history. In the movie, they say the wine and bread are the blood and body of Christ. This is good; this is how is was understood from the get-go. Here the movie takes an A.