Reviewed by Brin Mrzel
Teacher: Shannon.Moore
Class of 2016
JESUS CHRIST…Superstar
If you want to time to fly I advise
you to go out and play, because if you watch this movie, you just wasted one
hour and forty seven minutes of your life.
This movie is full of misunderstood hippies, reading a not compelling
script. The movie is way too short to describe and really show what happened in
Jesus’ life. I thought that the fact that some of the soldiers were armed with
machineguns from WW2 was confusing and irrelevant to the story. The start of
the movie was horrible, you can’t tell whether you are in Jesus’s secret cave
or in the city streets, although the beginning of the movie was a complete
downer as you got to know each of the characters and the plot it began to twist
in a better direction, it was much more entertaining, the ending was nothing special,
if you have heard the story of Christ then there is nothing new to look forward
to. This movie almost had me sleeping, even with all the songs, the only thing
that kept the movie from sinking was Carl Anderson (Judas) he sang his heart
out and he played the role of Judas amazingly, it almost had me feel sorry for
him.
The title of the movie (Jesus
Christ Superstar) may make it seem entertaining, but the story is only 1/12 of
your expectations of entertaining. It was written by Andrew Loyd Webber, this
is one of the biggest surprises he has written such great scripts and Oscar
nominated scenes, but this certainly would fall into the beginner category. The
actors that were suppose to keep the story interesting were; Ted Neeley, Carl
Anderson and Yvonne Elliman, they failed to keep it entertaining not because of
the acting, but because of the dry script. It was written it 1973, it is a
great movie for that time, but if it had to be compared to today’s movies like
Die hard or Warrior it is a “thumbs down.” The movie is a basic tale of the
Bible; it covers most of Jesus’s highlights, and things that you have already
heard millions of times. To make it even worse it is all in song which gets
incredibly annoying.
The movie is all about Jesus’s
life, it has a lot of controversial parts, but the main idea is the conflict
between Judas and Jesus, were Judas believes that Jesus could have gone way out
of hand with what he has been doing, and is becoming a “superstar” hence the
title, if Jesus listens to one of his best advisers or will he listen to his
selfish conscience. The movie is a “rock opera” this means that not one single
word is said in the whole movie, only songs are sung these songs get repetitive
and annoying. If you are that type of person that likes to smack themselves
with a bat in order to forget a song so that you can sleep, this is certainly
the movie for you.
Besides the annoyingness and lack
of entertainment, the movie wasn’t all that horrible, some characters kept me
and most likely the rest of the audience entertained, we can take Judas as an
example, you could see that he was having fun as he was acting and that he took
his character seriously and really put his “blood, sweat, love” into this
movie. His vocals were of the hook and his movement swayed with the scene. The
second character that intrigued me was Simon (the Zealot) just like Carl Anderson he really enjoyed playing in
this rock opera, he sings like a lion, and his acting is just spectacular, he
made me laugh a couple of times just because of his facial expression, and the
way he prays and really believes in Jesus is… believable.
This movie will be either boring or
a waste of time for most generations, there is not enough action for the new
generation, and there is not enough laughter for the “old” generation, the only
people who might enjoy this would be parents because of its “spiritual”
meaning. Most of the actors in this movie are unable to act without either
staring straight at the camera or forgetting that their onset. I give this movie:
11 crosses out of 50
11
/50
/50
Work cited:
"IMDb
- Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). IMDb. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070239/>.
"Cross." Pure
Thirst « Clean Water Is Our Mission. Purethirst. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.
<http://purethirst.org/?attachment_id=831>.
