Judas

Heavens, this has to be the worst "biblical" movie I have ever seen! The dialogue is so hokey, too much is left out, events are out of chronological sequence-and the actor who plays Jesus-Ay!ay!ay! He's too wimpy, too wussy, his delivery is weak, he sounds like a surfer, which would maybe be okay in a movie dealing with a lighter subject, but NOT here-in plain English the whole thing stinks!. This film should have been left in the can forever. Before Mel Gibson's "Passion" came out,it would have been barely passable. NOW it is just inexcusable! I have seen MG's "Passion", it is a good movie on its own-but compared to this film, it's platinum-"Judas" is not even BASE METAL! Lord have mercy!

The reason I ask if Jesus owned his own surf board is because he looked like he was born and raised in Malibu. While Judas has its moments,the other 85 minutes of the movie is utter garbage. In the shadow of The Passion, the networks only real motive to show this movie was for profit. Judas has moments of stunning visual achievement (although not historically accurate) and interesting dialogue (questionable) between Pilate and Jesus. Still, I found myself laughing at most of the stuff Jesus says and does. In defense of the Actors in this crap of a movie, it's hard to do anything good if the script is bad. The best-worst line in the entire movie is when after Jesus tells Judas that he wants to take him to paradise with his Father, Jesus says to Judas: "What do you say?" Forgetting proper English along with any traces of biblical authenticity, that line defines the mess this movie is. To anyone wanting to be screen writers or filmmakers, if you want to make a serious movie, use serious dialogue. If not, make a movie like Judas.

Scatterbrained, ill conceived, and dare I say it, blasphemous. What parts of scripture they added to the movie were either misinterpreted, misplaced, or dictated in a corny, lifeless manner. Then, as if it weren't bad enough to simply take scripture and do with it what you want... they decided to ADD scenes to the Word. Scenes such as Pilate and his wife making out while Flavius looked on, or Judas confronting Jesus about Jesus' soon to come death - where Judas used the expression "What the Hell" -- An expression -I've- never read in the gospels. As well, other colorful phrases were thrown in - perhaps an attempt to modernize the film??? And the additional scenes of Judas, lamenting over his decision to betray Christ... where he tries to convince the apostles to rescue Jesus... or where he screams in horror as the crowd calls to crucify Him. Funny how the scriptures say Judas hanged himself long before these events happened. All the while leaving out chief events - such as the anointing by the woman of ill repute.

As for the acting (or lack there of) -- You had Jesus, who was portrayed as a wimp, played by a soft-spoken, blond haired-blue eyed "actor" who would do better in commercials then in any movie. Judas was a mismatch of personalities - all poorly played - and for a while I got the impression they were -actually- trying to make him LIKEABLE! The betrayer of Christ... likeable... What were they thinking? The apostles were all over the place, and nothing like the bible describes them. And would someone -please- explain why in all of these "Jesus" movies, the Mary's and Martha's all seem to have British accents?? Where in the scriptures does it say they "hailed from Jolly ol' London"? And while they're sipping tea and eating crumpets none of the other characters have any accents, what so ever... interesting. And while we're explaining things... what was the deal with Jesus and Judas "wrestling" on the garden path and discussing becoming bandits?? What?? Where did - that - come from?

The movie generalized, stereotyped, blasphemed and over all invented areas of scripture, most of which had nothing to do with Judas himself.

Badly acted, badly produced, poorly cast and over all poor quality... simple as that.

If I were to give this movie a letter grade... it would probably be somewhere around the O's or Q's...

Its good intentions are obvious. New perspectives about familiar events, a nuanced story and a subtle portrait of Judas . The only sin - it is not exactly credible. it seems an improvised project and , after so many films about same subject, a too cool Savior can be a great mistake. And, unfortunately, it is it. Sure, many reserves about script and acting, about not the inspired dialogue, but the error remains something perceived as a sort of superficiality looking for give a decent image of a friendship and a controversal character. It is not a rehabilitation, not a good explanation. It is only an exercise, not bad, to define obscure aspects . The story has not exactly coherence. The resurrection of Lazarus is awfull .The effort of Johnathon Schaech works not very well, the temptation to give a modern version to a sacred story is , at the end, not the most inspired idea. And the Lord, he seems too much with a young hippie or a rock star in early career. The good point - Bob Gunton as Caiaphas. But, sure, the film remains a nice try.

Jesus appears to be a surfer who's searching for but can't find the beach to go hang ten. Judas, dressed in black, is an emo who wants to get like totally rad against the Romans and hang ten all over their face. The rest of the cast are card board cut-outs; it's hard to figure out who is playing whom.

The movie appears to be well meaning, but it just goes all wrong. First of all, it takes all its source material from forgotten scripture, the Gospel of Gnarly. The writers come up with stuff that doesn't fit with known scripture, and to say the writer took poetic license is being nice. Jesus comes across as confused, wimpy, and suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Judas just yells and screams at him, so that they can launch a military campaign of two men to overthrow the Roman Empire.

Judas is always mad, and it makes no sense that Jesus would have called this guy as an apostle in the first place. From then on they bicker, with Jesus always sounding like a 1st grade teacher, and Judas sounding like a cross between Fred Flintstone and General George Patton. The fact that the acting is weak makes these awkward characterizations even more bizarre. Events from the passion are tossed and turned, out of context, and out of logical chronology.

This should only be viewed as a novelty, as a case study of just how far a story can stray from source material.