Great Movies
Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, Mattia Sbragia, Hristo Shopov
This version of "The Passion of the Christ" has not been given a star rating.
Mel Gibson takes another cut at "The Passion" with this toned-down, unrated version of his bigger, longer, and uncut R-rated 2004 smash hit, "The Passion of the Christ." The recut eliminates five or six minutes of gore and violence in an attempt, according to Gibson, to make it more palatable for "Aunt Martha or Uncle Harry."
Of the original version, which opened on Ash Wednesday 2004, Roger Ebert wrote:
"If ever there was a film with the correct title, that film is Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ.' Although the word passion has become mixed up with romance, its Latin origins refer to suffering and pain; later Christian theology broadened that to include Christ's love for mankind, which made him willing to suffer and die for us.
"The movie is 126 minutes long, and I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent film I have ever seen."
(Read Ebert's full, four-star review of the R-rated version here.)
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
