In 2004, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" was a landmark film in its unflinching look at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. "Son of God" operates in a similar vein, while also focusing on more of the ministry of Christ before his death and resurrection. The difference between the two? This is a four-star solid film, while "Passion" is five stars because it was first and because it had a little more "passion" (pardon the pun) behind it.For a basic plot summary, "Son of God" is pretty much a straight re-telling of the Jesus story. After a brief prologue about the Old Testament and Christ's birth, it begins with Jesus (Diogo Morgado) meeting his disciples as they are struggling to catch fish in the Sea of Galilee. The "walking on water" scene quickly commences and the film is off and running. It doesn't touch on every aspect of Jesus's ministry, but certain key moments are rendering in fantastic dramatic detail. About half way through the film, it shifts gears and becomes a crucifixion/resurrection story, beginning with the involvement of Pontius Pilate (Greg Hicks)."Son of God" is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. It is a faithful re-telling of the Jesus story...as simple as that. Due to the success of "The Bible" miniseries on television, the show producers wanted to get something up on the big screen. Considering the short time frame they had to work with, I would say they did a fine job of putting together the film.The reason it will always be second fiddle (at least to me) to "Passion", though, is because of two main reasons (in this case I won't even fault "Son of God" for being second, even though that does have at least some impact): First, in "Passion", Gibson quite literally poured his entire life into that project. That kind of energy and effort showed up in the final product. With "Son of God", one can tell that even though the cast/crew/producers were trying, the effort was not to make a masterpiece. Secondly, Jim Caviezel was just flat out a better Jesus than Morgado. Like Gibson, Caviezel lived his role and set and (until recently with the success of "Person of Interest") was practically known as Jesus in the film industry!So, while "Son of God" was a solid Jesus story flick, it will probably always play second-fiddle to "Passion of the Christ" for some of the reasons I listed above. I don't see it as a problem that the Jesus story is re-told every 10 years or so in a new dramatic setting, but looking at things purely from a movie-critic perspective it just doesn't quite measure up to Gibson's 2004 piece.

First, this series sucked, because it wasn't even accurately portrayed as if they were in Africa, because that's the truth to the bible and biblical fact. Second, the show only showed all the main people in the bible to be white, and then once again referring to the bible coming from Africa, obviously people weren't that light skin. The worst thing about this series was they don't show the true "Jesus". I also, think that the way the stories were put together in this series was really crappy. I hope I never see this show again! Quite honestly this show does not show a man of burnished bronze skin and probably never will. They never showed the man with the hair of lamb's wool! I will also be honest this show might have made me not be a man of Christianity I will tell you that much.

As a Catholic, I was looking forward to seeing Son of God. Although I had not seen the mini- series this is based on, I didn't care. I knew this would not be as good as the series, but seeing this first would make my experience with it better. I had heard negative reviews towards this, most of which were harsh, but I understand.Not many feature films cover Jesus' full life. The ones that do are epics and this is 136 minutes. Despite being condensed, I was surprised to see how poor the first half was. Everything before Palm Sunday is a sloppy mess with everything randomly thrown in at different spots. There's no build-up, follow-through, transition, or full segment. I was very unimpressed. But then Palm Sunday happened...Diogo Mordago plays a hip, charismatic Jesus that I liked. He can relate to people and have fun with them. I heard negative feedback about his performance but I liked it. Who wouldn't want God to be tender and charismatic? He is the only thing that got me through the first little bit. Palm Sunday is when the structure and storytelling improves to a high degree, but visible flaws fly...Son of God goes into detail on why people were deadset on Jesus dying on the cross. It is explained better than lots of other Jesus movies I've seen. This is a high point. When Jesus gets tortured and crucified, it is not as bad as Passion of Christ in 2004, but still brutal enough to be accurate. The accuracy in brutality of the crucifixion is played about perfectly. Sadly, flaws surround it which keeps it from living up to its potential. The first big flaw (after Palm Sunday) happens when Jesus gets arrested and Peter cuts off the guard's ear: everybody watches the ear being cut off and Jesus healing it, yet they arrest him anyway. Bible stuff aside, that is very unrealistic. In reality, they would have told Pilate about what happened. In the other Jesus movies, all hell breaks loose with nobody really noticing anything and the guard being severely overwhelmed. The next flaw happens when Peter denies Jesus. Peter is scared that he will die and denies him in the spur of the moment, then realizes his sin after the third deny. In this, Peter is looking at Jesus the whole time. Bible stuff aside, what a cruel thing to do. Peter was Jesus' best friend, so there's no way that happened the way it did here. Roma Downey also plays a poor Virgin Mary and all she does is unrealistic. These flaws are too big to ignore and diminish the scenes' values.The resurrection bit was very well done, letting the movie end on a high note. Kudos to them. But everything before could have been better. Not sure how everything was edited (if it was all newly filmed or taken from the series), but I can't say enough how poor the pre-Palm Sunday bit was. And all the significant flaws that happened post-Palm Sunday were easily avoidable. Luckily, there are redeeming qualities that are relatable and make this a worthy watch. Ownable? No, but see this at least once. 6.5/10

How dare we can write horrible reviews or even be a critic of a movie that is about our savior??? this movie was amazing and depicted Christ's suffering perfectly! This movie isn't only amazing but it shows how much God loves us. It breaks my heart that we would say such horrible things about this true and amazing story. I am so glad that it made so much money in theaters and i am so glad that people saw it. :)I love God and I love that movies like this were out this year! Glory to god! people need to hear the message of Christ and they need to hear the gospel. People need to hear and see this story and they need to know God loves them and they need to know that god cares about them. They need to know that there's something more to this life.