A most vulgar and offensive exploitation film. An anti-semitic slasher flick with Wes Craven overtones. Like most faith professions of contemporary Christianity, this nonsense focuses almost exclusively on the cult of the personality of Jesus, emphasizing his identity as God made flesh, while shortchanging his more valuable significance as agent of divine providence, redeemer and prophet, devoting about five minutes of the 144 minute running time to his teachings. This extreme anthropomorphizing falls just shy of blasphemy and the larger moral message gets lost. The movie's unrelenting obsession with cruelty and brutality is a cheapshot, opportunistic ploy to satiate the American moviegoing public's worship of gore and carnage. In this, Gibson is exploiting what is referred to in the synoptic gospels in a circumspect fashion, as the central issue, scripturally speaking, is not the human suffering of Christ but the redemptive process of which it is a part. But Mad Mel's telling of the story is more in the Freddy Krueger vein, apparently a cynical attempt to optimize box office receipts. The result is a heavy-handed, ill-advised reliance on shock effect that actually tends to desensitize the viewer after about fifteen minutes. As the prime focus of the film is the masochistic flaying/cruxifiction spectacle and the lack of affect by most of the participants, the characters are insufficiently developed and there is a shortage of significant human connection in the film. The characters become mere cardboard cutouts and the film has a cartoonish feel to it. As a result, the acting isn't even worth talking about. Hence, the film is emotionally vacant, as sensationalist torture crowds out the human ethos. The depiction of Jews is especially offensive, as the Pharisees are seen as being exclusively evil and vicious, totally without redeeming qualities and justification for their actions. The position that Jesus was crucified for blasphemy, iconoclasm and rabble rousing, three crimes very justifiable for extreme punishment back in those days, is given cursory reference and discounted as mere negative windowdressing. This is a perpetuation of medieval stereotypes that is grossly intolerant, atavistic and irresponsible. In addition, the presence of that Wes Craven-like Satan figure was also troubling: firstly, the Satan image was depicted as a woman, which is an example of typical RC misogyny that is akin to typical RC anti-semitism; secondly, the evil image was shown only within the manic Jewish rabble, further underscoring the implied anti-semitism of the film; thirdly, the extension of the Satan imagery to the demonized children theme (seen in the children berating Judas and the bald midget held by the Satan figure during the torture of Jesus) was most negative and serving of no defensible narrative or scriptural purpose. Mad Mel also tries to take the Romans off the hook for their culpability in the Passion. Pilate, a brute who was recalled from Judea due to the excessive carnage he inflicted, is portrayed as a contemplative, conflicted Goodguy caught between the demands of duty and moral conscience. This is totally at odds with historical accounts. Even the Roman soldiers who grossly abused Jesus are mostly pictured as loutish functionaries merely following orders. As Mad Mel subscribes to a conservative form of Roman Catholicism, it follows that he's attempting here to sanitize the record through revisionist denial. This movie was also marked by simplistic comparison/contrast. All Good vs. All Evil, Good Women (the two Marys) vs. Bad Woman (the Satan figure), Good Child (Jesus Christ) vs. Bad Children (mentioned above). This is an example of the reductive black and white Manichaean thinking of Catholicism, a primitive way to apprehend existence that figures prominently in the movie. The film was also bore a notable inaccuracy: as both versions of Jesus Christ's final words (found in Matthew and John) at the moment of expiration are uttered in the film, this critical moment is contradictory, inauthentic, and hence, unscriptual. There were several depictions of typically hokey Catholic magic in the film: the destruction of the Temple, the reattachment of the ear in the Garden of Gethsemane, etc. Yet, perhaps the greatest shortcoming of this turkey is the lost opportunity for moral ascendance: this movie would have been a prime moment to spread the valuable Christian teachings of love, tolerance, mercy, grace, forgiveness and redemption, yet the film was seriously lacking in these themes. If anything, a few of them were given the bum's rush near the end of the flick while repulsive liberties taken in earlier, extended scourging scenes were obviously considered more important to the story. In this, the great tale of deicide is pervaded with a sense of surgical detachment while being devoid of any palpable moral uplift.