Whether or not the extent of his torture was accurate in this film is undetermined, but in the film he was flayed with a pair of cat-o-nine-tails and they tore the skin from every inch of his body. They hammered the crown of thorns onto his head. They kicked him and punched him gratuitously for fun and laughed in his face. Then they made him drag this cross to the place where he would be suspended from his burden. Then they nailed his hands and feet.

Son of god or not, it was a disgusting (are there words strong enough to describe this?) action upon another living being.

I'm not a religious person, you guys know that. But I was so disturbed by the two hours of relentless non-stop pain that was this film. I won't see it again. I was glad when it was over.

He certainly got his point across with this film though, Mr. Gibson. I think he wanted to make us suffer a tiny fraction of what Jesus suffered in his last day. Impossible, really, but that's what he tried to do.

Technically, there were some faults in the film, too much use of slo-mo, certain shots I could hear the voice of Mel Gibson in my head with his commentary "I chose this shot because...". I was just too aware of the FILM, which took me out of the story a little bit.

The acting was ok. Jim C. who played Jesus was certainly convincing, and he has these eyes which are either contacts or his own, but they are so red/brown auburn, they seem to glow like embers. I found them fascinating.

Monica B. was beautiful and mature, her wails were a little shrill at times, her crying seemed forced a bit. But she was decent over all.

The woman playing Mary was painful to watch in a couple of ways. She was visibly devastated by the force of what was happening, but she had the same expression on her face through most of the film, her brows knit together.

There was a cool scene where she walked around a courtyard, as though she was looking for something and had just gotten a clue, and walked until she stopped over what seemed a random spot, bent to the ground and pressed her face to it, rubbing it with her hands. The shot pans down and through the floor and we see that Jesus is chained directly beneath her.

Pontius Pilate was a fine actor, I thoroughly enjoyed him.

A question was raised to me about why King Herod is always portrayed as a poncy prancing bitchy queen. Does anyone know history enough to tell me was he really like this? Or is this just a Christian way of indicating he was a "sinner" and lived in decadence and such?

The coolest thing (in my opinion) was that the film was in Aramaic and Latin. I am tired of seeing period films and all the actors speak in British Accents to indicate foreign-ness or something. Like it's set in France, but they're all speaking with British Accents. GAH!!

Well, that would have to have been tough work for the actors to learn a language that hasn't really been spoken for EVER and a day, and really, Latin too. Both dead languages in texts only.

I admit, I was enthralled and a little excited to hear people speaking in Latin. One of my favourite subjects/languages and to hear it out loud in conversation was great. It's always used in religious text or masses or things. This was just talking. Great.

The other element which I could have taken or left was Satan, who wandered through crowds watching the man's destruction. He/She plagued Judas until he hung himself. He/She was creepy, played by an androgenous actor, who I THINK was a woman, but was very beautiful in a cold as stone kind of way. It was an interesting addition, with a little scare tactic shot in the film too (blatant filmmaking again...)

Anyway. I will tell you that you won't like the film. But you could see it anyway, for the experience.