Movie Review: Son of God
:
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
I was without a doubt looking forward to Son of God, the latest rendition of the greatest story ever told. Just as many Christians have pre-booked and sold out entire theaters in anticipation of this much awaited film. With as much excitement as Star Wars or The Hunger Games is to those film’s respective fans, this film is the Christian faith’s Harry Potter. I for one held great hopes for this film in a world of subpar Christian movies, I was thinking maybe just maybe Son of God might be a film that might not be a total embarrassment to the Christian faith. It was not, however it was also not fantastic. There was artistic license, meaning that Son of God is not completely scripturally accurate. But that is to be expected within moderation. It’s the story of Jesus’ life and is easily seen by all ages without worry of young eyes being traumatized such as when we are walked through the crucifixion. Unlike Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, the Son of God is a much less gory depiction.
The film begins with some of the highlights of the Bible, from the narrative of the apostle John, such as the fall of Adam, Sodom and Gomorra, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Moses with the parting of the Red Sea, etc. We are then lead to the early years of Jesus’ ministry, where he begins gathering his apostles. Diogo Morgado plays Jesus, there has been much in the media about Morgado being too sexy for the role. Not true, he is beautiful just as one might expect. Where one could definitely find fault is with the characterization of Mary, Jesus’ mother, Roma Downey from the television series, Touched by an Angel could not have been a worse choice for the roll. I want to be as kind and delicate as possible here, but the plastic surgery she has undergone, completely ruins the believability of the story. It is not only completely obvious that she has had Botox and more, but it is continuously distracting. In a roll where emotion/anguish is paramount, it was impossible for her to express even a furrowed brow.
Other disappointments, for one was in the decision to take out any roll of Lucifer (Satan) which was rumored to be in the likeness of our current president. Personally I would have liked to have seen that in order to judge for myself the validity of the gossip. The film ran almost two and a half hours and had an extremely slow rhythm. As petty as it may seem, it should be mentioned how annoying it is that every character had the pearliest white teeth. I’m absolutely certain this would not have been the case back in the day, very distracting.
So, the good news is that Son of God features a story that you can take your children to and it does tell the story of Jesus’ life in a relatively nice way. But for me, I was completely disappointed. Do this, you know how many times you have great expectations and assume a film to be phenomenal and it falls short? Lower your expectations and you will most likely enjoy Son of God more.
Betsy Cizek
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