{"id":13653,"date":"2016-05-26T15:40:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T19:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13653"},"modified":"2016-05-27T13:41:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T17:41:34","slug":"br-risen-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13653","title":{"rendered":"BR: Risen (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Risen2016_BR\"Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>:\u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Sony<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0A<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0May 24, 2016<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Biblical \/ Historical Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Clavius is tasked with making sense of Christ sightings after he personally supervised his crucifixion in this new take on the resurrection of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 XXX<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kevin Reynolds\u2019 extremely keen interest in period stories (his Hatfields & McCoys<\/a><\/strong> is perhaps his finest work) continues with this very odd re-examination of Jesus\u2019 crucifixion, based on a story by newbie scribe Paul Aiello. It\u2019s essentially the arrest of Jesus and his hippie followers, their deaths, and the mysterious disappearance of Jesus\u2019 cadaver and surreal reports of sightings of a \u2018risen king,\u2019 and the once brutal Roman soldier who\u2019s every so slowly convinced love and hope are far better life views than the intricacies of battle, torture, death, and terrorizing masses into submission.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s three tones through which Reynolds plows through at a fairly efficient pace: action drama (rounding up the Jesus\u2019 brethren), Biblical drama (Christ\u2019s death and the politics of \u2018traitorous\u2019 Jewish leaders using Romans to quash pesky hippies), a police procedural (investigating Jesus sightings and what it all means); and a gradual swerving towards a pro-Christian drama validating love, forgiveness, and the unquantifiable peace one achieves through faith.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a weird trajectory, but perhaps due to the film\u2019s narrative economy, it mostly works, although not necessarily because of any stellar performances. Buffed Joeseph Fiennes adds nothing new to the dour, seasoned and cynical soldier archetype, but there are some marvelous moments in which Clavius\u2019 ennui for meting out torturous death is unnerving; his best scene involves the interrogation of Mary Magdalene, and detailing the personal torment a crucified person undergoes to strip an arrested follower from a smiling goofball to a horrified weakling (although the payoff of that scene is quite surreal).<\/p>\n

Peter Firth channels Charles Laughton in the dry, moping, selfish lord Pilate; and Tom Felton emotes the arc from green-eared soldier to cynic for Clavius\u2019 imposed assistant Lucious.<\/p>\n

Most surprising is Cliff Curtis (who ironically had a mall role in Reynold\u2019s Easter island epic Rapa Nui)<\/strong>, who\u2019s pretty damn good as hippy Jesus (rebranded Yeshua); his words are select, and his philosophical ruminations tend to ask other characters (like Clavius) \u2018What is it you want?\u2019 rather than stand and spout Biblicalese.<\/p>\n

The decision to turn the search for Jesus\u2019 cadaver into a police procedural is rather novel (if not evocative of Andrew Kevin Walker\u2019s Sleepy Hollow<\/strong> script, where Ichabod Crane is reworked into a nerdy behavioral FBI scientist), but it\u2019s a bit of a cheat, given there can\u2019t be a resolution to the Jesus \u2018case.\u2019 What\u2019s left is Calvius\u2019 personal quest for meaning, sending him as a tracker into the desert, where he ultimately drinks and breaks bread with Jesus\u2019 followers.<\/p>\n

Reaching Galilee fulfils the need to hit the main plot points of Jesus\u2019 resurrection, but it\u2019s somewhat deflated by an encounter with a Leprosy sufferer: after Jesus hugs and touches the man, he stumbles away, turns back to the camera, and emotes a \u2018Huh, that was unexpected\u2019 face and walks away. It\u2019s a glaring illustration of Reynold\u2019s lack of depth in giving the film greater emotional resonance, and the fault lies in the script (which he co-penned with Aiello) and a rather na\u00efve view of the Jesus legend. When Jesus walks off into the desert one final time, there\u2019s a CGI sunset and \u2018Bye guys!\u2019 wave that\u2019s rather facile than soulful and inspiring.<\/p>\n

Counter-balancing the film\u2019s flaws are the gorgeous Spanish and Maltese locations, the fine sets, costumes, and d\u00e9cor, and Roques Banos\u2019 superb score that packs a lot of ethnic instruments into an otherwise intimate score.<\/p>\n

Risen<\/strong> is basically a Biblical B-movie, told simply, with a few innovations by a director and writer never seeking to proselytize viewers, but the final act feels like a TV movie wrap-up instead of the more intimate and emotionally affecting version of Philip Saville\u2019s excellent (and very epic) The Gospel of John<\/strong> \/ aka The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John<\/strong> (2003). (An interview<\/a> with director Saville and composer Jeff Danna is also available.)<\/p>\n

To Reynold\u2019s credit, this is a beautiful production with strong atmosphere and overall performances, and at 107 mins., it\u2019s an easy to digest retelling of Jesus\u2019 resurrection.<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s Blu-ray sports an excellent transfer, deleted scenes, and several making-of featurettes, and the unique warning of \u201cBiblical Violence\u201d to alert more sensitive filmgoers of this otherwise PG-13 drama. Only qualms: the Sony brand name is more than oft-repeated in the film\u2019s first few minutes, preceding and blended between logos to a ridiculous level.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2016 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Reynolds\u2019 extremely keen interest in period stories (his Hatfields & McCoys is perhaps his finest work) continues with this very odd re-examination of Jesus\u2019 crucifixion, based on a story by newbie scribe Paul Aiello. It\u2019s essentially the arrest of Jesus and his hippie followers, their deaths, and the mysterious disappearance of Jesus\u2019 cadaver…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[4452,4451,4448,4447,4450,4446,4449],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3yd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13657,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13653\/revisions\/13657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}