Follows the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a non-believer. Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), a powerful Roman Military Tribune, and his aide Lucius (Tom Felton), are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Yahshua (Cliff Curtis) in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem.
Now everybody kind of knows this story but you may not have heard of it told like this. I will say right off the start that for a story all about the Biblical Resurrection, I find it annoying that the word Jesus was never used in any way as the so-called man in question is referred to as Yahshua (Curtis) (I know this still a technically correct name but it’s still kind of annoying). The resurrection story is told from the perspective of a non-believer, a roman Tribune named Clavius (Fiennes) and his aide Lucius (Felton). Once Yahshua’s body appears to be missing in the weeks after his crucifixion, they are tasked to investigate in order to disprove rumours of a risen Messiah thus preventing an uprising in Jerusalem. I don’t want to give anything away here but I must have gotten the wrong impression about what I thought the film was going to be about because the film’s main plot got resolved rather early on and I found the rest of the film to be rather boring. The story started off kind of interesting where we got to see Clavius and learn about him and the Romans’ place in the area in that time period. We don’t really get to see too much as the film assumes that we already know this. I didn’t find Clavius himself to be too exciting of a character as he did not stand out to me in any way. He just seemed a little too one-dimensional and emotionless. Despite that, he was still somewhat interesting as I was waiting for him to get better but it never happened. He was just a means to an end. Maybe if we had more time for character development, which was pretty much non-existent here, I would have appreciated him more. After the plot ended, the film fell apart for me as I found myself caring less and less about the rest of the story as subplot after subplot kept dropping. (Spoilers) Clavius stopped being a non-believer rather quickly and suddenly joined the apostles, the other Romans stopped caring about finding Yahshua, and I just found myself watching Clavius and the apostles walk through desert after desert (end Spoilers). I was just disappointed (but not surprised) by how lame Yahshua was and by how the story seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t see the point of Felton’s Lucius as he served no purpose in the plot. The film made it look like he was going to be Clavius’ protege but as with many things in this film, this went nowhere too. The apostles were not very fleshed out so you couldn’t help not to care about them. The scenery was nice to look at and the music was decent but it just wasn’t enough. Overall, this was just a boring and disappointing, squandering its source material.
Score: 4/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
