Movie Review: The Passion of the Christ

This movie makes me wonder what is wrong with Christians today. I have heard nothing but positive stuff about this movie, but in reality there are a ton of problems with it. I am gonna talk about some of those now, along with what I actually liked about the movie.

Now to start off, I do think the movie did an okay job at showing the horror of what Jesus actually suffered for us, it did its job with the visuals there. I do think that it mostly stayed accurate to the Bible as well, aside from the fact they felt the need to add to it in typical Catholic fashion whenever they got the chance. As a note to all people making movies out of the Bible, it is already interesting enough as it is, get your creative crap out of the way.

With that being said, let's start off with what should be the most obvious problem, what is Satan in this movie and why do random demons keep showing up? The first demon to appear was a jump scare that came out of nowhere. It didn't work because I was too busy being shocked that it was actually in the movie at all. Satan was not in the garden with Jesus as he prayed, and Jesus did not step on a snake that came out of his robes. I get the symbolism, but stick to the actual telling. It is also worth mentioning in this same scene I got the impression that Satan was asking who Jesus was as if he didn't already know, which is stupid because they had already faced each other in the Wilderness at this point, and again, he wasn't in the garden anyway. Satan also doesn't look like.... whatever the heck he looks like in the movie. He would look like an angel of light, because he is a cherub, even if he is fallen. I also have to question why Satan is holding a demon baby thing when Jesus is getting whipped by Romans, it just looked weird and made no sense at all. Let's not forget the demon children that harassed Judas until he killed himself, that is obviously a thing right? Oh wait, none of this crap is in the Bible, it's just weird stuff added into the movie.

The next big issue I had with the movie was the Mary focus, she is barely mentioned at the time of Jesus's death but I would argue a third of the movie just focuses on her. There are added things like her going and cleaning up Jesus's blood with towels given to her by Pilate's wife which, unsurprisingly, never happened. Let's not forget Mary staring down Satan in the crowd because obviously she can see him, right? She also helped Jesus stand up at one point and kissed his bloody feet on the cross, which is when Jesus basically gave responsibility to take care of her to a disciple of his, the only part that actually happened in the Bible. The fact the movie was made by a Catholic shows with all this Mary focus due to the fact Catholics worship her. I know many a Catholic will deny this, but the Catholic church teaches that she has never sinned ever, and if you read the Catechism she is just as important as Jesus. I believe the wording was something along the lines of she is the new Eve and Jesus is the new Adam. Make no mistake, Catholics worship Mary and that showed in this movie big time when you consider things like Mary being able to actually see Satan.

Another thing I think needs to be mentioned is this Veronica woman never existed. She randomly appears, ready to clean Jesus's face so that the Catholic church can justify one of their relics, but she doesn't appear at all in the Bible. So once again the movie is guilty of adding Catholic nonsense. Yet another thing is the movie assumes the adulterous woman was Mary Magdalene, not a huge deal this one, but still, we shouldn't assume they are the same person because she isn't mentioned by name in that particular story. Another thing was the big brawl in the garden, the Bible simply says that an ear got cut off, Jesus fixed it, and said not to fight them and it was over. The movie on the other hand thought a fist fight broke out and then an ear got cut off, Jesus fixed while everybody kept fighting, and then finally stopped everyone. I'm going to add one last thing, just to nit pick, he says "It is accomplished," on the cross instead of "It is finished," like he actually said in the Bible. They mean the same thing but please get it right, people.

In summary, despite the fact the movie gets some things right, it adds so much that isn't right that it is just horrible. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone and if I did it would be to show them how bizarre the beliefs of a Catholic are. I can't even begin to explain the demon stuff though. I don't blame the Catholic church for that, I think Mel Gibson might just be crazy. Demons are real, but I don't think they did anything to Judas, they wouldn't have had to. Satan would have been hanging around for sure, influencing people, but he wasn't some creepy thing with a hood. I think the best thing we can learn from this movie is exactly as I said before, don't add to the Bible, just show everything as it is and let people learn from it. I promise you, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is more than interesting enough to retain people's attention. You definitely don't need to add kid demons and jump scares.

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