Jesus liebt mich

Jesus liebt mich (Jesus loves me) is a movie about Jesus (Jeshua) returning to earth in order to prepare apocalypse. Hey meets Marie who reminds him of mother Mary. She introduces him into "her" world which is totally chaotic. She just dumped her fiancé during wedding ceremony, her mother starts a new relationship (with archangel Gabriel) and as she finds out what Jeshua is really up to, she's the only one who can actually stop him from ending humanity. Marie has to convince him humans aren't as bad as it seems as the ending is about to begin....

I found the movie quite refreshing and entertaining and I also had to laugh out loud a lot. There are lots of comic aspects and the actors play well. For a German movie I was also quite surprised about the special effects. The story itself is also very critical and should not be taken too seriously.

First of all: I am a huge fan of most of the actors. They did a great job and Florian David Fitz ahead as a spookily convincing Jeshua. He's just a good actor and apparently a good writer too. The movie lacks a bit consistency compared to the wonderful book but it's a well rounded approach to the story anyway. Love to see so much "Doctor's Diary" cast members again. I totally understand Florian to pick them, successful team: stick to your guns :) Oh and by the way, I cried. A LOT. Damn.

As an admirer of Florian David Fitz as an actor I was really looking forward to see his debut as a director, but sadly this movie left me disappointed.

The story to me unfortunately totally lacks drive, during the whole film I was desperately waiting for something like an arc of suspense, but it just didn't happen. No real ups or downs, rather a constant flow of lukewarm happenings stringing together, I just couldn't relate to any of the characters nor to the storyline, it just didn't "get me".

Something I want to mention positively were the well done, not overdone special effects and some beautiful and good placed photography of the wonderful showplaces.

You don't have to be religious to understand the basic plot around Jesus and all the bible-related innuendos. The subject is handled respectfully and does not polarize. Florian David Fitz with no doubt successfully avoided to split the audience in believers or non-believers,but by trying to represent Jesus in a way that pleases everyone the character sadly also lacked charisma and passion. His try to represent Jesus as the gracious kind character ended up in appearing extremely sleepy, almost "stoned" or sedated. From his former performances in "Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit", "Die Vermessung der Welt" and specially in "Vincent will Meer" I remember Florian David Fitz as an incredible multifarious lively charismatic actor that never failed to impress and to entertain me, the more strange it appears to me that his first own movie seems to be the only movie so far he didn't dare to show 100% of his acting skills.. and I wonder why.

Jessica Schwarz on the other hand often comes along TOO officious and hyper. The only highlight to me was Henry Hübchen in his role of archeangel Gabriel.

At no point of the film I started to feel with characters or to hope for the characters, it sort of simply let me cold. So it wasn't much of a disappointment when the movie simply ended as fanciless as the whole plot was.

The original idea of that story would have had potential, but what was made of it was too predictable and unfortunately got spoiled by feeding every clichè you can think of.

For his next try to agitate as a director I wish Florian David Fitz more courage to leave the accustomed usual trivial style of German TV romances, because there are too many of them already and I'm absolutely sure he has the potential to make something more extraordinary.

The German audience and his fans CAN indeed digest more substance than that, just do it!

Florian David Fitz is capable of expressing heavy feelings so I was curious about how he would play Jesus. Well, he played him realistically! Good willed, having deep thoughts, suffering, plus he looked amazing. An actor should have emotional depth to pull off Jesus and Fitz has it.

The script, on the other hand, was a roller-coaster for me. There were scenes that made me seriously think and feel but they were scattered around the movie. I could have been wowed by a story like this if Fitz handled the script more intensely, putting more emphasis on the philosophical side and on the main characters (He's the screenwriter/director himself). He shined as Jesus but we could only see bits of it.

I laughed a couple of times, like at the disappearance of Satan, which is a good sign because it's hard to make me laugh...Overall, it's a good-enough directing debut for the main actor and worth giving a chance.

I don't know why this film got quite low ratings here. It's not a masterpiece, but can you really escape its quirky, likeable nature? Or does the humour only work in the original language and not go down so well with an audience that doesn't understand it? In any case, I enjoyed the story of this irresistibly handsome Jesus, and the rather irreverent treatment of the other biblical characters was also quite to my taste. Of course, some of the plot fell by the wayside and not every minor character really made sense. But I was completely satisfied and perhaps even a little in love with Jesus :-)