Clearly this film comes off as an epoch. Magnitude, grandeur and dignity drip from every scene. Being personally familiar with the biblical account of the life of Jesus, I was at times quite impressed with the almost-inspired interpretation of many hard-to-picture moments in the gospel narratives brought to the screen. Yet on the other hand, I had painful difficulty agreeing with other scenes.
For example, Jesus heals a hopelessly bitter cripple in a dark synagogue: of course the biblical story is very brief, leaving a lot of room for the imagination to color in details- however, the scene seems to cheapen christ's awesome power and divinity. As Jesus leaves the synagogue, the camera zooms in on a facial expression so quizzical the viewer is left feeling that perhaps even Jesus himself didn't believe the healing was possible either...
Although "personifying" the devil was a very workable technique throughout the entire film, dropping available details about tempting a starving savior to eat bread and omitting christ's excellent response left me disappointed.
Another valiant and worthy attempt, but again the novel was better 8)
