The Movie: Yesterday I did a somewhat blasphemous thing by watching The Last Temptation of Christ on Good Friday, of all days. Back in 1988 when this film came out, it caused a whole lot of controversy. My mother was probably pretty convinced that anyone who saw this movie would go straight to hell. Of course, back then, I was way too young to get into an "R" rated movie anyway. The controversy stemmed from the fact that this is a fictional "what if" sort of scenario where instead of dying on the cross and resurrecting three days later, Jesus is apparently persuaded by an angel to come down from the cross, get married, have children, and raise a family, in an attempt to lead a normal life. Of course, most of that sort of thing happens only in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, and this thing is damned near three hours long.

The Last Temptation of Christ was actually quite interesting to me on an intellectual level, in that it really emphasizes the human side of Jesus' dual nature as both man and God. And although pretty much all mainstream Christian theologies include this dual nature of Jesus, it seems that just about every portrayal of Jesus I can remember has shown him as a regal presence, always in control, with a mythical strength and presence... or in other words, all God but inside the shell of a man.

This film is kind of a "hey wait a minute, wasn't Jesus supposed to be all God and all man? It brings him down from this elevated, invincible status, and explores the weaknesses that came from his human side, and when you look at Jesus under this light, the allure of the temptations he was faced with every day become more real. More vivid. He wasn't just able to just shirk them off just because he was a God -- it was a struggle to stay true to the path with Satan bombarding him with temptations from all sides, just as it is for any man.

In my opinion, a true Christian with a mind of their own, who is able to recognize for themselves truth and fiction, who watches this film should come away with a new respect for just how tough it was for Jesus here on Earth and that should leave them with a heightened sense of just how great His sacrifice truly was. Those temptations that Satan threw at Jesus his whole life didn't just bounce off like bullets off Superman's chest.

And most of those religious zealots who were out there protesting this film without having ever seen it, probably never even found out that in the end, Jesus sees what the consequences of his succumbing to that last temptation to come down from the cross were, and sees just how terrible the results end up being.

However, as interesting on a purely intellectual level this film was for me, as a film, well, it just wasn't very good. The pace just seemed so slow. In fact, I was constantly checking to see how much longer it was going to go. I just wasn't really engaged by the story that was unfolding in front of me. I couldn't get emotionally involved. And while it was a pretty interesting choice to have most everyone speak in a normal American (or even New York) style (instead of the usual terrible nondescript British accents that they usually seem to give to Bible movies for some reason) in an attempt to bring this story down to a more human level, I ultimately was distracted by it for some reason. Maybe I've just been too brainwashed by old Hollywood practices?

So I guess the bottom line is that all the controversy stirred up by all the protesters who didn't want people to watch this movie... probably ended up with way more people watching this movie than there would have been if they just kept quiet... because it really wasn't a very engaging film. But they succeeded in getting me interested in watching this film, some 17 years after the fact!

The DVD: As expected from the Criterion Collection, this disc has excellent video and audio quality. Clean, but not too clean, allowing the film to retain its original character. Special features were on the sparse side of things, probably to allow for maximum quality for the main feature. You do however get an audio commentary track with a few of the people involved in the film, as well as research materials, production stills, costume designs, and a video interview with Peter Gabriel who wrote the score for the film.