The Passion of the Christ vs The Son of God

First of all, I am just a college student writing an opinion. I am in no way affiliated with any big news crew and it is not like anyone is paying me for this. I just wanted to share what was going on in my mind.

I just finished watching this movie. I went with an open mind because everyone has a different take, interpretation of this story. Plus, I have seen so many other different versions of this story. Who hasn't? When I first heard of this movie, the two movies that came to my mind was King of Kings and Greatest Story Ever Told. Those two movies were a lot more in-depth than Son of God, and as soon as the credits started rolling, I started critiquing and comparing this movie with the older two. With the scenes leading up to his death, I started thinking about Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.

While most movies try really hard to stay inline with the books/stories that it is trying to convey, Son of God I would say really did not portray too much in the life of Jesus. With the exception of raising Lazarus from the dead and healing a paralyzed man, not too many of his miracles were shown. For me, since they decided to show the raising of Lazarus from the dead, I think this movie could have shown Jesus weeping. After all, Lazarus was one of his close friends and while it may not seem important to too many people, this showed that Jesus not only was a human, but that he had feelings and emotions. 

Roma Downey and Mark Burnett did a wonderful and superb job with this movie, but I felt it could have been done without worrying a lot about time restriction and I just felt that this movie was a little bit rushed. They could have just made this into a TV mini-series of its own and spread it into 3 2 hour episodes. Another alternative would have been to split this movie into 2 parts on the big screen.

However, without nitpicking everything else about this movie, I want to focus in on the part that mattered the most, the scenes leading up to his death in which I chose to compare with the Passion of the Christ. I tell you, the scenes that show Jesus being flogged and eventually nailed to the cross is never easy to watch, no matter who made the movie. Son of God did not get as gruesome as Passion of the Christ did, and I was able to watch this without getting queasy. However, seeing the nail hole in his hand just made me dizzy. However, watching this did not make me feel compassionate and I felt that his death scene fell kind of flat. I would have rather watched a whole village get bombed. Watching him carry the cross felt like I was watching another Easter re-enactment that you see at church. I had no feeling of compassion. Even the scene where Mary (Roma) runs to Jesus while he is carrying the cross just did not feel genuine.The only scene though that made me feel any type of sadness of what our Lord went through was when a stranger was pulled from the crowd and made to carry the cross. 

This is where Passion of the Christ worked. Yes, that movie was gory, gruesome and made my blood boil.

However, that movie had me in tears. I literally cried, especially when Mary ran to Jesus and then they showed the flashback of Jesus when he was a child. I watched Passion of Christ twice, and that scene still made me cry. I felt rage and anger towards the people that made our Lord suffer.

I noticed that both Roma Downey and Mel Gibson are Roman Catholics. There's nothing wrong with that fact at all. They are both passionate in sharing the story of our Lord and I really give them both props for telling that story. The death of Jesus is important to mankind. Without Jesus' sacrifice, there really is no hope for us. The thing I admire though about Roma and Mel is that they both really made they movies about what he did for us. While Greatest Story Ever Told and King of Kings were ok for the time period they were made in, those two feel so much like another Hollywood production. Passion and Son of God did a lot more than just making their respective works more than just another movie. I just believe Passion did a much better job. I am also glad that Passion also just focused on just one area of Jesus' life - his death. Had it tried to tell his whole life story, the meaning or the message would not have worked.

I really do believe that people should go and watch the Son of God and just enjoy it regardless of what you might think. I am excited though this year, 2014, is the year other Bible stories are being made for the big screen. When Passion of the Christ came out, I gave it a 4 out of 5 star movie. To this day, I believe it still is a 4 star movie. There is still a little more room for improvement. However, I believe Son of God is more like a 3.5 out of 5 star movie. There's a lot more that could have been done. Overall, I know that when it comes out to home dvd, yes, this is one I will purchase to support the work that Roma Downey and Mark Burnett are both trying to do.