Modern Christian theme films can be historical or symbolic or inspirational or "background" or a combination of these.
This one tends to get away from the background, as it deals with a Roman sent by Tiberius to investigate an obscure crucifixion of "you know who" as Tiberius lays close to death.
Okay, we'll buy that part. Tiberius was known to be as cruel and evil as about any other emperor, but he's interested in what lies beyond death at this point.
So, that's the crux of the film that gets some credibility, at least in comparison with most of the rest of the film.
In what happens afterwards, it gets a bit too "Mickey Mouse", and that's disappointing when one sees Sydow and Abraham playing roles here.
How big is the "Mickey Mouse" factor? I'd rate it fairly high. Even fifties films tried to be more sophisticated than this.
I think a lot of the Mickey Mouse look is due to the "cleanliness of everyone and everything. Everyone looks like they just came out of the bath tub. If one gets past that look, it gets more of a nod.
To its credit, most of motivations come across fairly well, though. It's watchable, and the "could it have been like this?" scenario isn't bad, just abridged in a way that makes it look worse than it should have looked.
This one tends to get away from the background, as it deals with a Roman sent by Tiberius to investigate an obscure crucifixion of "you know who" as Tiberius lays close to death.
Okay, we'll buy that part. Tiberius was known to be as cruel and evil as about any other emperor, but he's interested in what lies beyond death at this point.
So, that's the crux of the film that gets some credibility, at least in comparison with most of the rest of the film.
In what happens afterwards, it gets a bit too "Mickey Mouse", and that's disappointing when one sees Sydow and Abraham playing roles here.
How big is the "Mickey Mouse" factor? I'd rate it fairly high. Even fifties films tried to be more sophisticated than this.
I think a lot of the Mickey Mouse look is due to the "cleanliness of everyone and everything. Everyone looks like they just came out of the bath tub. If one gets past that look, it gets more of a nod.
To its credit, most of motivations come across fairly well, though. It's watchable, and the "could it have been like this?" scenario isn't bad, just abridged in a way that makes it look worse than it should have looked.