Risen

[Tigger45]

Anyone seen it yet?

 

[BookofMatt]

I plan on it; I've actually heard very good things about it, even from trusted secular/agnostic reviewers, so I have very high hopes.

 

[Tigger45]

I finally saw it this past weekend and I would only grade it as fair. Luckily I only paid the matinee price

 

[Spiritlight]

I saw it on the weekend and I thought it was great! The premise of the story is it is Yeshua's death and resurrection from the point of view of the occupying Romans trying to understand it all and make sense of it and track down a missing body to keep the peace. Joseph Fiennes does a convincing well acted job of playing Clavius a military chief and Pontius Pilate's right hand man (creative license is used for this non gospel character) as did the remainder of the cast.

The acting in it was convincing and moving as you are confronted with a gruesome depiction of the crucifixion and the barbaric practices of the times.

For me one of the highlights was staying true to how things really might have been with Israelite characters of olive skin middle eastern appearance and Jesus (Cliff Curtis) is very dark skinned with short back hair which is a contrast to typical European depictions we are used to.


Besides the confronting well known events of the gospel it tends not to preach much or explain events in detail but rather uses powerful imagery to convey the story and would be suitable for a non Christian to watch to stimulate interest in the Gospel story without the feeling of being preached at.

For a Christian it is a must see and well worth it. Take a Christian friend or a non Christian friend and a box of tissues.

 

[HomeinSalem]

It is great. Upholds Scripture.

 

[BookofMatt]

For once, speaking as someone who's constantly and disappointingly critical of most mainstream Christian films, I'm glad to say that 'Risen' actually IS good, through both a Christian perspective (in its message and treatment of the Gospel) and a secular one (in that it's actually well-made, well-acted and well-written, taking a unique approach to the material). It's not a flawless film by any means, but it's one that I'd definitely recommend to both religious and non-religious friends.

I'm sad that it was only a very moderate box office success, and I'll be even sadder when 'God's Not Dead 2' inevitably quadruples its profits, but, alas, this is the world we live in.

 

[RDKirk]

Saw it with my wife today. It wasn't cheesy as most made-for-Christians movies tend to be, and the production values were top-notch. But it's a straightforward tale of conversion that's simply not going to have the same kind of dramatic action movie pacing or thriller movie pacing that modern audiences expect. So you have to already be interested in the basis of the story to really enjoy the movie.

Jesus was very well-acted and the swarthy, not handsome actor was a good change. Bartholomew....umm, kinda hard to take--I expected him to throw in a "like" or "man" or "far out" sooner or later.

The first part of the movie runs much like a police procedural, and that's okay. It changes direction, though, which may bother some people.

I thought the Romans in general were well done, and I especially liked the example of realistic Roman infantry tactics at the start of the movie. I've been doing quite a bit of research on the Roman military during that period, and this movie was very good, not only on the technical details, but also how duty in Judea would have "degraded" some of those details. They would not have been as shiny and "squared away" as soldiers doing duty in Rome, and the way they were degraded was realistically depicted.


Spoilers below:





















There were two things that annoyed me. One was the implication that Mary of Magdala had been a prostitute (popular misconception, scripturally untrue) and had been actively selling her body even to Roman soldiers right up to the time Jesus was crucified (again, not according to scripture).

The second was that Clavius would have been welcomed by the disciples even to almost becoming one of the Twelve, and would leave their company by his own volition. Scripturally, we know that Peter was extremely anti-Roman right until the conversion of Cornelius, and still moderately prejudiced against Gentiles for another thirty years. I would like to have seen Clavius trail the disciples from a distance (as he started) and then approach Jesus alone, as he did.

The ambiguity of the ending was honest. No guarantee of "happiness," but a promise of peace. What's important is that Clavius had never expected his life to be happy anyway--he had always only hoped for peace at the end of it. He actually did get that one thing he said he wanted, what he had said to Pilate that Jesus repeated to him, when he sent his former adjutant away. It's probably a subtle thing that ultimately, Clavius gave up nothing that made him happy.

 

[YoureMyBeloved]

Saw it last saturday, it was good.

 

[Goodbook]

Hope to see this one with my bible group.
Not sure about mary magdalene she was changed by the Lord who cast seven demons out of her. Maybe they played it up for the film, but she may have been the woman caught in adultery who in the gospel was unnamed. Also when she anointed Jesus, pharisees declared she was a sinner, this mary was apparently the same mary who had martha as a sister.

People think there were two separate marys, but it was just one. The other mary would have been jesus mother.

There was also a mary who was mother of james apparently.

 

[RDKirk]

Hope to see this one with my bible group.
Not sure about mary magdalene she was changed by the Lord who cast seven demons out of her. Maybe they played it up for the film, but she may have been the woman caught in adultery who in the gospel was unnamed. Also when she anointed Jesus, pharisees declared she was a sinner, this mary was apparently the same mary who had martha as a sister.

People think there were two separate marys, but it was just one. The other mary would have been jesus mother.

There was also a mary who was mother of james apparently.

Wait, are you claiming that Mary of Magdala is also Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha (who lived in Bethany) and also the woman caught in adultery (who was unnamed woman caught in Jerusalem)?

So was Mary of Magdala freed of demons by Jesus before or after she was caught in adultery? At what point did she get married?

The synoptic gospels make a point of distinguishing this Mary as a Magdalene. John doesn't identify this Mary as "Magdalene" a couple of times, but does make the point of explicitly identifying Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus as the same woman who annointed Jesus' feet with oil and drying them with her hair. If he went to that much trouble to identify this Mary, why would he not have also said, "...and the Magdalene" if that were the case?

And the story of the woman caught in adultery is unique to John. If he were careful to tell us the woman who annointed Jesus' feet was a particular "Mary," why would he not say it was the same Mary?

The only thing scripture says about about the life of Mary of Magdala is that she had been possessed by demons and that, by name, was of the city of Magdala.