The Passion of the Christ: Critic Reviews

Gibson has made a movie for nobody, really, but Gibson.

Blood-soaked pop theology for a doom-laden time, its effect that of a gripping yet reductive paradox: It lifts us downward.

The Passion of the Christ is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it.

And any power these explicit scenes have is in any case undermined by the absurd tweeness of the final moments.

Despite controversies swirling around the movie, one cannot deny that Gibson has made a stunning film, beautifully photographed in contrasting dark and golden hues by Caleb Deschanel.

Puts us in a situation where we can't help but feel Jesus's pain. If only Gibson had taken the time to tell more of us why it mattered.

May have succeeded in exploiting Jesus's death for its most highly pitched emotion and drama. But in the process, for many believers, it may have served only to trivialize and further obscure the story's most central and sacred mysteries.

If you come seeking theological subtlety, let alone such modern inventions as psychological depth, you'll walk away battered and empty-handed.

Less reverential than razzle-dazzlin', more an episode in the history of show business than a religious epiphany.

The movie is a compendium of tortures that would horrify the regulars at an S&M club.

Controversy over whether it will inflame anti-Semitism guarantees huge audiences, and many people may be profoundly moved. But as a film it is quite bad.

Controversy aside, it is dramatically intense, skillfully constructed and often harrowing, in ways that should have an impact on people of any or no particular faith.

A film of artistic ambition and devotion.

Bears the same relation to other biblical epics as a charnel house does to your local deli.

The movie Gibson has made from his personal obsessions is a sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood, and agony.

I was moved by the depth of feeling, by the skill of the actors and technicians, by their desire to see this project through no matter what.

In the end, one can respect Gibson's high intentions and dedicated work, while remaining spiritually and dramatically unmoved by the result.

If I were a Christian, I'd be appalled to have this primitive and pornographic bloodbath presume to speak for me.

This work of obvious devotion may well be the first spiritual splatter film. It makes Gladiator and Braveheart -- even Friday the 13th -- seem mild by comparison.

Regardless of how you feel about the movie's message, you're certain to leave the movie feeling something about the movie itself.

A filmed bloodletting like no other on record, essentially a terribly graphic two-hour torture sequence.

The basic message of Christianity -- love your brother -- is obscured under torrents of blood to the point of benumbing the audience.

Whereas the words say love, love, love, the sounds and images say hate, hate, hate.

Mr. Gibson has gone to a lot of sweat and expense to make a movie that doesn't say much of anything new.

Gravely intense and the work of a man as deeply committed to his subject as one could hope for or, for that matter, want.