Risen is the new biblical film about a roman soldier (Joseph Fiennes) who is tasked, at first, to make sure no one disturbs the tomb of the just-crucified Jesus (Pontius Pilate and the Pharasies believe his followers will steel the body and declare him risen from death) and then, later, to find the body when it goes missing. The take on the crucifixion and resurrection story is a unique one for about the first half of the movie. In fact, the soldier just kind of rides in on the tail-end of the crucifixion of Christ underway – it’s not that big a deal to him. Just another day in the Empire, dealing with upstarts and malcontents.
And that’s the flavor of the movie for the first half – a man who believes in the Roman pantheon (Mars specifically, Pilate worships Minerva for her wisdom) rationally trying to deal with the problem of religious fanatics causing trouble in the neighborhood. He interviews people who heard from a friend of a friend that Jesus was risen from death or talking to the soldiers who were guarding the tomb, finding Mary Magdalene (by asking the barrack if anyone knows what she looks like), and tracking down Jesus’ disciples (who are kind of in another movie with their enthusiasm compared to the put-upon Romans).
If the movie took this approach and left things even slightly nebulous it’d have been a pretty good film. I mean, yes for a bible-themed movie, we’d know the movie was on the side of Jesus and divinity but leave the mystery somewhat in-tact so our non-believer comes away with doubts, that’d be a more interesting film. It’d have been a film not advertising Christianity but the very idea of Pascal’s Wager (Given the chose of believing in God or not, it’s wiser to believe since, if there is no god, you have lost nothing in eternity. But if there is and you didn’t believe, then you risk eternal damnation).
But the second half of the movie throws out all doubt and you just kind of spend a long time with the disciples (11, used to be 12) and the roman soldier following in the footsteps (and sometimes hanging out with) the risen Christ. The problem is that the movie’s not good enough to just be yet another story about Jesus. As a kind of mystery and police procedural in Ancient Judea, it was kind of interesting. Not great but certainly interesting.
All that said, I’ll also note that this movie has a good production value and good acting (though sometimes dubious writing). They did appear to be filming on location among real buildings (sometimes with set extensions probably). It’s a handsome (if dusty) movie with real production values. It’s nice to have a budget and professional actors.
Oh, and it also co-stars Tom Felton so that’s a bit of a “who’s that guy? Oh jeesh – it’s Draco Malfoy! And his Roman character name is Lucious. Like Lucious Malfoy? Was someone in the casting and writing department funning this movie production?”
Anyhoo… not a terrible movie. First half is solid and kind of interesting, second half much less so. For a really devout religious person that second might work better but I’m only reviewing it for the movie I saw and that second half was kind of by-the-numbers and much less interesting.
Score: 68