Director: Garth Davis
Writer: Helen Edmundson, Philippa Goslett (Screenplay)
Starring: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tahar Rahim, Ariane Labed, Denis Menochet, Lubna Azabal
Plot: The story of Mary Magdalene.
Runtime: 2 Hours
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Boring
Story: Mary Magdalene starts a Mary (Mara) a young woman in a small town helps out the way she can, but is considered possessed because of her behaviour, when Jesus (Phoenix) arrives on his journey, she gets inspired to join his cause with his followers, including Peter (Ejiofor) and Judas (Rahim), where she learns more of the bigger world problems, they are fighting for.
Mary gets to witness just how important Jesus is the people on the journey and how nearly every town or city would come to a stand still for him, until he is betrayed.
Thoughts on Mary Magdalene
Characters – Mary Magdalene is a figure from the Bible, one that was close to Jesus, we do follow her journey from small town outsider to one of his disciples who could lead the women unlike any other, she learns about the world from the journey and just who she could trust. Jesus is the man we know from the Bible, he travels from town to city to help people with his abilities of faith, which sees him become the inspirational leader or many. Peter is one of the disciples that has been by his side for years, he welcomes the people he trusts to join, including Mary. Judas comes off like a nice man, we know his true nature, as he is seen telling Jesus the stories he wants to hear.
Performances – It is hard to criticize any of the actors in this film, they really don’t have anything to work with, they just can’t make an impact in such badly written character, which come from a popular source material.
Story – The story focuses on Mary Magdalene, one of the many followers of Jesus, we see everything through her eyes, how she was treated before he came along, how she was able to connect to the women unlike the rest and how she reacts to the end, the moments we all know from the Bible. The problem here comes from that fact that we have seen countless versions of the Jesus story, we often grew up on our own version of the figure and while this might be more accurate to the tales, it doesn’t come off showing it to be very interesting.
Settings – The highlight of this otherwise slow movie comes with the settings which show us just how the country would have looked like at the time of Jesus.
Scene of the Movie – The settings.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The story.
Final Thoughts – This is a painfully slow story that we have seen before, it just offers nothing new or anything interesting to the ideas the bible once taught.
Overall: Dull and uninspiring.
Rating
