Times review of The Passion of the Christ

Today's Times has a very positive review of The Passion of the Christ. Given Mark Kermode's positive review in The Observer, it's beginning to look like British film critics are giving something of a thumbs-up:

The Passion of the Christ
Mel Gibson’s epic of faith and gore stuns James Christopher

MEL GIBSON’S reconstruction of the Passion is the most controversial horror film Hollywood has made since The Exorcist. It is not for faint hearts. The biblical “facts” are hitched to scenes of such intense, visceral realism that you physically flinch from the cruelty. It’s almost impossible not to be moved by Jim Caviezel’s vulnerability as Christ, even if the idea that he is no “mere” man is never in doubt. From the moment he is betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is treated like a lump of meat.

It’s a mesmerising, monolithic performance. Caviezel drips with sweat from the first chilly minute, and staggers through most of the film with one eye permanently closed after having his face pulped by Jewish soldiers within seconds of his arrest. What gives his humiliation such unexpected authenticity is the Aramaic (spoken by the Hebrews) and “street Latin” (adopted by the Romans), even if it sounds like pure Orc to untutored ears . . . . .

. . . . . Claims that the film is anti-Semitic are wildly inappropriate. The mob is far more enamoured of the scent of blood than arguments about blasphemy. The Roman soldiers are drunk on sadism. In their blundering, anarchic enthusiasm, they almost kill Christ several times before they can get him up Calvary.

Perhaps Gibson leans too heavily on old horror-movie staples. One might query the eerie presence of Satan as a cowled and sexually ambiguous monklike figure who ghosts through the crowd with a look of amusement. But it’s a spicy, and fitting, piece of imagination, just like the maggot that wriggles from his left nostril to his right. The rabble of taunting children who hound Judas to his tree have their faces transfigured into devilish goblins. And a teardrop from Heaven hits the ground like a bomb when Caviezel, as Christ, finally expires. But they are modest indulgences in the awesome context . . . . .

In my view, the overall tone of this review, like Kermode's, is about right. It is interesting to hear both Christopher and Kermode describing it as a horror film.