O Evangelho Segundo João

This film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Amazingly, it avoided all of the mistakes made in most other attempts to tell this story. The Bible's presentation of the story of Jesus is based primarily on four narratives--each stamped with its author's own personality and unique perspective.

Many previous films have sampled more than one of the Biblical narratives on the life of Christ. Also, they needlessly added scenes not found in the original sources. The authors of those screenplays in merely sampling from several sources, lost the unique focus of each respective author and diluted the overall effect of the story.

This film is based on John Goldsmith's screenplay which deftly avoids all the laughably silly cliches of previous film versions. Goldsmith's screenplay is based on only one man's perspective, that of Jesus' disciple John. Many stories with which the viewer is familiar, such as the nativity, are missing from John's gospel and therefore also from this wonderfully complex and yet lucid screenplay. Jesus' words are not here presented as pious platitudes, but occur within a context where Jesus responded to those around him.

The dialogue is solely based on the Good News Bible (also known as Today's English Version) Christopher Plummer very ably supplies the verse by verse narration from the same source. His delivery re-enforces the clarity of what is on the screen. Most of the other actors were not known to me--which I felt helped. (What part could one give to an actor who previously portrayed a drug dealer?)

Jesus is brilliantly portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus the man with human emotions, Jesus the visionary resented by the religious establishment of his day. This Jesus did not refer to them for his authority. Cusick, convincingly portrays Jesus the carpenter as a handsome, masculine, very charismatic man. Cusick is very much equal to the task. I spoke very briefly with Cusick after the screening, thanking him for his portrayal of a part that is loaded with hazards--all of which he avoided. I hope we see a great deal more of this fine actor.

The music by Jeff Danna is wonderful--well beyond what I could have hoped for.

One friend of mine at the screening expressed his concern that this film in portraying Jesus' death at the hands of the Jewish establishment might make it vulnerable to accusations of Antisemitism. I reassured him that in its earliest days, Christianity was a sect within Judaism. Almost all the people portrayed in The Gospel of John were Jewish. It was not until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 that the Christian sect became predominately Gentile.

Director Philip Saville has done an enviable job directing a project that was fraught with artistic traps.

I hope this film receives very wide distribution. Even Christian conservatives should be very happy with it.

This film was surprisingly very good. Unlike Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" this movie can serve both Christians and non-Christians as a cohesive educational experience. But this isn't a boring, conservative Christian movie. All really good dramas are character-driven and the potrayal/interpretation of Jesus in this movie is so strong that if I were the crying type I very well might have. Jesus is very genuine, compassionate, emotional, yet self-controlled. At first I wasn't quite sold by Henry Ian Cusick's style, but his sincerity was really consistent throughout the movie and I was convinced about 20 minutes into the movie at most. Other users have commented on how they were surprised by Jesus's impatience with the discples or loud tone when speaking to the Pharisees but I have to say, if you've read the Gospels then you should expect Jesus to be demonstrative and uninhibited, as circumstances dictate.

As others have said, this movie is a faithful adaptation of the gospel of John. I thought that having every single word of the book either spoken by characters or narrated was a necessary and intelligent decision to make. To hear the Word allows you to consider the actors & director's interpretation of certain events & verses, and also to simply consider the Word for yourself in a comprehensive manner. After all, how often does one ever read straight through the book of John?

Watching this movie really helps the Christian understand Jesus' incredibly difficult situation. I'm not talking about the crucifiction, but the fact that Jesus as the Son of God is incarnated into a man and has to tell men who he really is. To put it more clearly, imagine if God incarnate stood before you as an average looking human being and said "I am the Son of God." Unless you saw a miracle it you would not be willing to suspend disbelief. I empathized with Jesus when he emphatically said, "I am telling you the truth!" so many times throughout the movie.

In conclusion, this movie is really worth your time to watch. Although it is very long and you may lose focus at times during the middle portion I would still highly recommend it. It isn't perfect but overall it's a fantastic piece of work.

I saw this movie last weekend. The weekend before I saw "Passion of the Christ". The "Gospel of John" is truly a line-by-line presentation of the Gospel of John, and I thought the actors did an excellent job. The movie was top-quality in all aspects, which was a pleasant surprise. Too many past Christian-produced films have been pretty low on the quality standard. Anyway, the best part of this movie is that the spoken dialogue and the narration is actually what's written in the English translation of the Bible, and that is the most important thing here. God says that it's "his word that goes out and does the work it was sent to do", and that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." People don't need to hear opinions, variations, or whatever. The world's full of that stuff, and yes there's a place for it. However, what will be most effective in touching people's hearts is for them to read/hear the word of God, and that is the main reason why this film is most excellent.

Everyone should see this film.

Henry Ian Cusick does a fantastic job of capturing the kindhearted, casual, loving Jesus any of us would want as our friend. It reminds me of that drawing of Christ laughing!

In some of the older portrayals, Jesus comes off as wooden, isolated and somehow above everyone else. Not here! Jesus smiles at others' limited understandings, but with compassion, as if he wants to teach them something by his very presence.

The best special effect had to be the walking on the water. Beautiful photography throughout - Filmed in and near Malaga in Spain, it does Jerusalem and Israel proud!

Please consider inviting your friends to see this film. It has so much to offer and it gets the point across - Jesus is the Savior of the world!

I loved this movie, and I am actually a Muslim. The fact that the screenplay is so word for word faithful adds alot to the movie. And the acting and directing are fantastic. The film does a wonderful job of making you feel what life was like for Jesus, his disciples, and those he came across. I hope there will be such films made of the other gospels soon.