Roland

Despite rave reviews by Ebert and Roeper, the critical consensus on "The Passion" seems fair to middling at best.

Here are some major critics' reactions:

NY Times: negative

TIME: positive

Newsweek: negative

New Yorker: negative

NY Daily News: negative

Variety: positive

AP: negative

Rolling Stone: mixed

LA Times: negative

Most of the negative reviews seem to concentrate on the over-the-top unrelenting violence and the lack of a spiritual, inspirational dimension to the movie.

Who knows? Maybe the effect of the film will be to actually turn off more people to Christianity than it turns on. How would that be for irony?

I guess it may be harder than Mel thought to bludgeon people into accepting Christ.

Postcard73

There is already a big thread about "Passion" reviews in M&PC here. Since this thread just got started, I'm gonna close it and refer everybody to the other one.

Scott (Postcard73)
BC&H Moderator