Review of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) by Mike R — 05 Feb 2008

Watching this movie was like eating jelly beans--there was plenty to enjoy but every now and then you'd find yourself chewing on low-quality licorice. The film's purported heresy is less disturbing since it is up front about the fact it is not based on the gospels. That said, its weakest moments are when the dialogue devolves into dualistic head-games--wrestling with the divinity and humanity of Christ does not require that one buys into the neo-Platonic separation of mind and body.

What I most loved about the film was the intensity and immediacy and that Scorsese brings to the material. Rather than the ritualistic sadism of "The Passion" or the slavish formalism of "The Gospel of John," "Last Temptation" is characterized by passionate humanism. To a fault? Sure.

But the people who inhabit Scorsese's 1st-century Palestine have the conviction and emotion of -real- people, rather than the stoic, boring extras that typically populate Jesus films. For example, when Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, the crowd, rather than sit there dove-eyed and contemplative as though Jesus's words were merely nice things to be thought about, begins to go wild with conflict and argument--the meaning of his message inspires immediate praise and revulsion.

There are many problems with this movie, but it serves as an example that a re-telling of the gospel might be possible in which you're not thinking about the inevitability of the ending before the story has even begun.