LOL, I’m going to piss a few people off with this, but that skit was better than the original film.
Okay, even as someone who’s not really Christian anymore (I’d rather not get into it, but basically I like Jesus’ approach to things, but a decent amount of what God did and said in the Old Testament did not age well for me), I could still appreciate a good movie focusing on Jesus’ life. But Passion, in a way to get attention, focused on the brutality of the crucifixion. Yes, it’s shocking, but it means the movie fails to spend time developing Jesus and his message and his relationship with his disciples. Why should I care if Peter denies Jesus if I barely know either of them?
And for those going, “but I already know this story”, true, but plenty don’t. So basically the movie is just preaching to the choir, which is a failure of quite a few Christian films. It’s why God’s Not Dead 1 and 2 suck but 3 is actually decent for what it is. 1 and 2 do nothing but present Christians as persecuted and misunderstood and portrays all atheists as assholes or downright evil. 3 still portrays most Christians positively but also is willing to criticize their extremists and shows some issues with some modern believers, and portrays its atheists as just normal people who simply believe differently. Also 3 ends with its lead telling both sides to stop fighting and to talk it out, a very Jesus-like move, whereas 1 and especially 2 have a total “we have to show up those dang atheists and put them in their place!” attitude which feels less like what Jesus do and more like an ego stroke. 3 feels like a film trying to have a genuine conversation, while 1 and 2 insult the “opposing side” despite also claiming they want to help them become Christians.
So yeah, not sure how this film could turn out good. Again, hard to care about what post-Resurrection Jesus did in this continuity when the first film barely featured his life and teachings. Also, Caviezel has obviously aged nearly two decades later, so either the film will BS something about why Jesus looks older now, or they better have some good de-aging effects.
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