I appreciate that so many Christian filmmakers have, and still are creating stories to introduce Jesus to the world. Some turn out great and some are mediocre. Thankfully this falls in the good category. It's interesting the artistic license each creator brings to their project. The spectrum ranges from the heretical to the divinely inspired word for word renditions. Again, this one holds closer to the exact stories in the Bible, though not word for word, so I put that in the good direction. The perfectionist diehards might point out the whole cast isn't made up of people who look like they grew up in the middle east. Personally I don't get as upset at that as some might. I thought the set design, location, cinematography, music, and a little bit of CGI was really good. The script was compelling as they told a very old story from a slightly different angle. I didn't recognize any of the cast but I thought they did a good job with each of their characters as their arc's unfolded. It was a good movie to kick off the 2025 Easter season and I could see myself watching it again in the future. I read a couple of negative reviews that thought the pacing was slow. Personally I didn't find that to be the case. Another person complained some of the conversations weren't biblical. Well, I can give a pass to that to some extent. A little artistic license didn't ruin the story for me. Yet another person said it was like a TV movie and low budget. I think people who make comments like that have no idea how expensive it is to make a movie and how hard it is to raise the funds. Also, releasing it is theaters first can sometimes boost the chances of making the money back. I personally still like seeing movies on the big screen and this one was created on a big enough scale to look good on the big screen. Hopefully people will also give it a chance once it goes to streaming. The more people support content like this, the more filmmakers will have the funds to keep creating. People complain there isn't enough quality content. There would be if people would support these creators. Lastly there was a complaint that Jesus acted depressed and joyless the whole time. Well, this is covering the last couple of days of Jesus' time on earth and he knew exactly what was going to happen to him. I think it is understandable that he might feel a little sad about it. 1. He is going to leave the people he cares about knowing life on earth can be hard. 2. He knew how he was going to die and horrific is an understatement. If they had written Jesus as the life of the party and happy go lucky the couple of days before his death that would have seemed disingenuous to say the least.
