Review of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) by Kevin D — 17 Dec 2010

I think this is one of Scorsese's worst movies. I thought the 164 minute length was unnecessary and several scenes seemed to drag on forever. The film did a good job at presenting the idea that Jesus was normal and that he too experienced human problems and concerns but overall his characterization was inconsistent.

At one point in the movie he had a monologue about how he feared violence and preached love, yet in the next scene he was causing destruction in a village and encouraging his followers to do the same. Also, Jesus was the only character that we got to learn about in the nearly 3 hour running time. Key characters like Pontius Pilate, Mary, and Joseph were almost entirely left out. The viewer really had no sympathy towards the Mary Magdalene character yet for some reason Jesus was infatuated with her. I think the best character in the movie was Judas as he had the most layers but I don't think Harvey Keitel's performance was that great. I think my favorite scene in the movie was when Jesus saved Mary Magdalene from the people who were going to kill her. His words were powerful and then he gathered his people and told them parables. These engaging, yet simple scenes are what Scorsese does best and he should have included more scenes like that one, but he felt the need to be ambitious and the film did not work out.

The twist near the end caught me off guard and I was impressed and surprised but it was a little too late. At that point I really stopped caring about the movie due to the excessive length of it and my boredom. This is the worst Scorsese movie I've seen and I was not engaged by this movie at all.