In case you haven't already, DO NOT, under any circumstances, go out to see the Passion of the Christ. If anyone ever wanted to create a 3 hour advertisement for atheism, this was it.

I'm not sure what exactly drove me and Olivia to go watch this turkey - perhaps it was boredom or morbid curiosity. In any case. the first half hour set up the film to be somewhat of an epic historical account of the last days of Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not a christian, so I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit about the story and the times. Unfortunately, despite the film being entirely in Aramaic and Latin, the shoddy acting, cheesy dialogue, and heavy-handed writing managed to shine through the subtitles, creating a cinematic disaster in the same vein as the L. Rob Hubbard scientology epic, Battlefield Earth. How Mel Gibson managed to make Christ sound identical to a creepy Northern California hippy cult leader, is beyond me.

The only redeeming character was the devil, played by an androgynous goth girl with no eyebrows and a black hood. (It certainly wasn't Mary Magdalene. She not only doesn't appear in the film, but isn't even mentioned by name. Come on, even I know that's wrong.) The devil has no actual role, except to randomly lurk around and add "dramatic tension" and "intensity". I couldn't quite figure out why the devil was carrying around the midget baby thing, other than, perhaps, to give a nod to David Lynch.

After the first half hour, the meat of the film ended. Or rather, the meat began, depending on what you mean by "meat". The remaining 3 hours of "Passion" was a slasher flick, depicting Jesus Christ being ripped to shreds, tortured, dragged through the dirt, humiliated, laughed at, tortured some more, and so on, ad nauseam, FOR 3 HOURS of graphic SLOW MOTION. It was if they didn't have enough scenes, so they decided to pad it out with slow-mo and endless repetition. YES WE GET THE POINT. The Romans tortured the guy. Okay, fine. Can you please summarize and maybe get back to some story? Maybe some history? No? More blood, exposed rib cage, and cranial fluids? Okay great, thanks!

First, the Rabbis beat him up. Then they sent him to Romans who really beat the shit out of him. Then there was the 20 minute scene (and I'm not exaggerating - 20 minutes) where they whipped him with some kind of whip with metal hooks that ripped bits of flesh off his back. And of course, they had to show close-ups of the bits of flesh getting pulled off with the whip, and various colored fluids spraying in the eyes of the Roman tormentors. In slow motion. Close-up.

Then they fuck him up some more. (Did I mention that there's no trace left of any story or plot or character development at this point? If you're not christian, expect to be completely lost, as different characters float in and out and reappear to flash knowing looks to the camera. Am I supposed to be like, "oh, that's Peter. Wow, I totally remember this part from Sunday School"?) Eventually the Rabbis convince the Romans to crucify Jesus. I'm thinking, great, maybe it's almost over. But no, it's not.

There is no way that the actual crucifixion was anywhere near as long as "Passion"'s depiction of the crucifixion. For an entire hour (maybe 2 hours?) we were treated to watching Jesus try to carry the cross, getting whipped by Romans, Jesus falling down (in slow motion!), Jesus moaning, Jesus getting whipped and laughed at by Romans, Jesus standing up, falling down, moaning, getting whipped, standing up, moaning, falling down, getting whipped, standing, moaning, falling, whipped, (do you see a pattern yet?) getting bloodier and bloodier, filthier and filthier, and after an hour of this, I had to restrain myself from yelling out "just do it already!"

Finally, they pounded the nails in his hands and feet (which I couldn't watch), and of course they showed close-ups and spurting blood (in slow motion) so you could "feel" like you were there. Well, great. If I had been there, I don't think I would have stuck around, I probably would just read about it in the Jerusalem Gazette the next morning. Maybe I would have "felt" more like I was there if I had walked out of the theater.

Then, Jesus dies, we get to see some gratuitous special effects, some supernatural earthquake happens, everyone freaks out, Jesus walks out of the cave, sees his shadow, 6 more weeks of winter, end of movie.

At least the soundtrack was good.