I risk ruining your Holy Week with this, I know, but hear me out. You deserve to know the truth, however shocking: Hollywood has outdone itself with a movie co-written and directed by a non-Catholic with some controversial baggage in his past.
I’ve seen this cinematic (more like sin-ematic) travesty myself so you don’t have to. Actually, it’s been out for a while.
It’s about the final hours of Jesus’ life, and it features a disturbingly high number of scenes that are not—I repeat not—found in the holy Bible, which is God’s inspired word that must not be added to or improved on. Right?
If you’re sitting down, I can give you a few examples. Deep breath. First, this mess of a movie features a scene with Jesus and his Mother, Mary, joking about table design. He even playfully (?) splashes water on her! I kid you not.
We are then treated to scenes of giggling children encountered by Judas who turn out to be—what else?—demons! And when Judas flings the bag containing the silver pieces back at the chief priests in the Temple, it seems to slow down in midair. Where does the Bible say this is even possible?
I’m just getting started. Satan is played by—are you ready for this?—a woman. Not just any woman, but an androgynous, bald woman who, during the scourging scene, decides to show Jesus her (?) chubby love child. A hairy midget from hell, I tell you!
Jesus is further shown being booted off the edge of a drawbridge and stopped only by the chains that bind him before hitting the ground. Oh, and there’s Judas cowering at the bottom of the bridge, gawking at him. This is found where in the Bible?
The actor playing Jesus is made to say to his Mother while on the Via Dolorosa, “Behold, I make all things new,” when everyone knows this is a line from Revelation 21:5. Any filmmaker who plays fast and loose with the Bible itself is hardly interested in the proper order of events therein.
And I didn’t even mention the raven plucking out the eye of the bad thief on the cross (ew!), or the very nonbiblical conversation between Jesus and Simon of Cyrene, or the giant teardrop falling from the sky over Calvary. (Yeah, as if a teardrop could set off an earthquake.)
As I was watching this fetid spectacle, it was weird. I heard music coming from the speakers of my TV set, accompanying the action. But when I read the Bible, I never hear music (unless, you know, I have it playing in the background). And in the tomb scene, when the apparently risen Jesus stands up (clearly naked, I might add) I heard military drums. Hey, Hollywood, who was playing the drums in the tomb, Buddy Rich?
Mark my words: The Christian exploiters in Hollywood are going to start churning out other epic films “based on” the Bible. Trembling as I write this, I do solemnly swear that the story of Noah will one day be subjected to a similar smear campaign.
Dear Hollywood: Stop adding to the inspired word of God with your diabolical need to “tell a story visually.” Please. It’s wrong. It’s bad. I don’t like it.
— A Concerned Literalist Christian Viewer
P.S. Yes, this is parody.
This article is reprinted with permission from our friends at Catholic Answers.
