Son of God
Director: Christopher Spencer
Cast: Diogo Morgado, Roma Downey, Amber Rose Revah, Darwin Shaw, Sebastian Knapp, Joe Wredden, Fraser Ayres, Greg Hicks
Rating: (M)
1 star (out of 5)
Having never been a big fan of fantasy, sitting through this two-hour-plus visualisation of Jesus' story was always going to be a tall order.
Perhaps that's a little unfair.
Maybe The Son of God will shed some light on new historical detail or even have a stab at showing that Jesus might not have been a hippy caucasian after all? Nope.
The reality is, there was never any real chance that this fable would be told from anything but a revisionist standpoint.
Cobbled together from the 10-hour miniseries The Bible that was produced for the History Channel by Mark Burnett (Survivor) and his wife Roma Downey, who plays the part of Mary, Son of God is clunky, overwrought and looks every bit the B-grade made-for-television movie that it is.
Dialling a capital M for melodrama, the music cues alone are cringeworthy and when you factor in the fatuous cinematography, cartoon-like CGI and uneven pacing, it's pretty evident that this film should have been kept as a DVD-only release for Sunday schools.
Aimed squarely at the great unwashed living in the American flyover states, Son of God has a pretty fair stab at many of the major story beats associated with the Jesus story.
It begins with the birth and, like a highlight reel, tries to cover every major magic trick along the way.
As a teaching tool for an unquestioning bible class, The Son of God would be perfectly adequate, but as a feature-length piece of cinema it is really dull.
Best thing: The beards, especially as they are quite the thing for hipsters now.
Worst thing: Having to sit through it.
See it with: One of the faithful.
