Director: Kevin Reynolds
Writer: Kevin Reynolds, Paul Aiello (Screenplay)
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth, Cliff Curtis, Maria Botto, Luis Callejo, Antonio Gil, Richard Atwill
Plot: In 33 AD, a Roman Tribune in Judea is tasked to find the missing body ofJesus Christ, who rose from the dead
Tagline – Witness the manhunt that changed the course of human history
Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Religious 101
Story: Risen starts as a Roman Tribune Solider Clavius (Fiennes) must take a younger soldier under his wing in Lucius (Felton) are killing the men of religious Christianity for the rules Pilate (Firth) with the latest crucifixion being Yeshua (Curtis).
When the body goes missing over the night, Clavius and Lucius are tasked with location the rest of the disciples demanding answers or facing death, was this the miracle believed or is it just the Christians fighting back against the Romans.
Thoughts on Risen
Characters – Clavius is the right hand man to Pilate, he oversees the crucifixions and the deposing of the bodies, when one of the biggest threats to the Roman army is killed, the body is placed in a secret tomb, but vanishes, leading Clavius to use all his skills to discover where the body is for Pilate or face punishment himself, this faithless man can now see the unexplainable for himself. Lucius is the young soldier assigned to work under Clavius, he has learnt a lot and must face a difficult decision when it comes to which side he will fight for. Pilate is the ruthless General for the Romans, he wants all the Christians killed including Yeshua, which is one murder that change the shape of history. Yeshua is the leader of the Christians, he has been killed for his people, but it is his body that vanishes and appears to help certain disciples find their way.
Performances – Joseph Fiennes is strong in the leading role, he doesn’t show enough of the ruthlessness that he could from the early meeting of his character though, Tom Felton doesn’t reach the full potential of his character which does seem like it never gets the screen time required. The film does suffer from lack of screen time from certain performers as we get caught up too much in introducing too many figures at once.
Story – The story here follows the events after the crucifixion of Jesus (yes we use a different name here) and his body vanishing, with the search for his body from the Romans and the disciples knowing this would happen, we see one man whose whole world gets turned upside down by his experience. This is meant to be another view point for the Jesus story following how the Romans dealt with the surprise disappearance and how one man went from having no faith to seeing the miracle happening and how he was involved in helping his once enemy. It isn’t the most engaging story and just doesn’t reach any level of intensity.
Action/Adventure/Mystery – The action is mostly chases or sneaking away from the enemy, the adventure does take us across the land in search for safety, with the mystery going on in the film being focused around just what happened to the body.
Settings – The film uses the settings to show us just how the landscape could have been used to the advantage of the people trying to escape from the land.
Scene of the Movie – The discovery by Clavius.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It doesn’t seem to have much risk about what is going on.
Final Thoughts – This is a simple movie that does deal with the basic of the rising of Jesus from another point of view, it tries to add some realism behind it, without being anything that fresh.
Overall: Basic religious film.
