Thursday, June 30, 2016

Review of THE YOUNG MESSIAH: Apocryphal Anecdotes

June 29, 2016




To place things into proper context in terms of expectations, it is important to note that "The Young Messiah" was NOT based on biblical text. It is a fictional account of how Jesus was as a child. It was adapted from a novel entitled "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" which was surprisingly written by Anne Rice, an author more known for her vampire novels. Expect literary artistic license here, not theology.

When news of King Herod's death was revealed to him, the carpenter Joseph decided to bring his wife Mary and child Jesus, together with some other relatives from Egypt back to Nazareth. Jesus was just seven years old then. Lately he had been discovering some new supernatural abilities he could do and this puzzled him. His parents though it was not yet the right time to answer his questions.In the meantime, the new King Herod Jr. got wind of the miraculous boy. Like his father before him, the jealous king ordered the chief Centurion Severus to go find the boy and kill him. 

The child actor Adam Greaves-Neal played the child Jesus aptly with convincing innocence, curiosity and confusion as his character was written. Sara Lazzaro looked right as the compassionate Mother Mary. Her shining moment was that climactic scene when she finally revealed to her son his divinity. This for me was the best scene of the whole film that saves it and made it worth the time spent watching this. Vincent Walsh played a very capable Joseph, defining him as the father figure we knew very little about.

As the Demon, Rory Keenan looked awkwardly out of place with his modern look. Jonathan Bailey continues to portray Herod Jr. as the effeminate yet ruthless Jewish king, as his father had commonly been portrayed in previous biblical films. The most recognizable actor in the cast is good old Sean Bean (best known as Ned Stark on "Game of Thrones"). Physically, he looked miscast as the Roman centurion Severus. However, he somehow gave the "bad guy" some empathy with his strangely benign portrayal of a poorly-written character.

As Catholics, we believe that the first public miracle of Jesus was at the Wedding at Cana. However in this movie, we see Jesus perform major miracles even at the young age of seven. We are told that the child Jesus was not aware of his divine origins and great powers at all. These are very contentious issues which some Christians may hold against this work. However, personally I felt these matters were handled by director/writer Cyrus Nowrasteh with deep respect, as he mixed these fictional anecdotes with biblical context.

On the debit side, I felt that this directorial respect for the material may have also caused the pace of the storytelling to be too slow, becoming unengaging at many points. For me, it picked up only in the last thirty minutes, and this was a rather lengthy one hour and fifty minute film. A cynical non-believer would probably have tuned out before then. However, viewers of religious films like this will most likely watch with a sense of faith, and this faith will give them the patience to watch this all the way through. In return, they will be rewarded with a most satisfying ending. 7/10.


18 comments:

  1. That's an interesting hypothesis on what Jesus' childhood must've been like. He must've told his apostles something about his childhood and it just never got written down. Mama Mary must've been such a wonderful mom to take care of him when he was young. Makes you think. :)

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  2. I've seen the trailer but didn't have much interest in it as I thought that it would be something very biblical. Now that you mentioned that this was adapted from a novel - that's something worth seeing. A 7 of 10 rating is not too bad.

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  3. I've never heard of this movie until I read your post. It's an interesting story angle, based from an Anne Rice novel. But since you mentioned that the pace is quite slow, I might get bored watching this movie.

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  4. I've seen the media ad for this film but did not bother to investigate or read it. I think, the film tries to convince the Catholic aufience that miracle happened during Jesus Christ childhood. Still I wonder?

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  5. I haven't watched a lot of religious films but I also do not mind watching them, I find stories like this very interesting and it's good to learn more about our religion. I think this is worth watching.

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  6. Like Elizabeth said above, I don't really have passion or like watching religious movies like that. Thanks for sharing

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  7. I've never seen this film before and it's interesting that it was not based from the bible. I would like to see how the story unfolds in the movie.

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  8. this is a nice movie! my kid and i would love to watch this together

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  9. You just helped me to add another movie in my watching list.Would surely try to watch it after your wonderful review.

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  10. I think this will be a good movie for those who know or are familiar with the history of Christ. Viewers must note though that the story is not from the Bible.

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  11. 7/10? I would have to give that a watch then! Sounds like a really interesting movie!

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  12. It would be an interesting movie to watch on Holy week. It can really show is a lot of things with religious and social relevance.

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  13. Oh is it a new movie? Never heard about it at all so far. Looks interesting though.

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  14. That's reallocate interesting. He lived among us as a human, so a movie that ponders his pre-Godly age is definitely a must-see.

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  15. I don't think his film is released in Singapore. I'm not sure if I will want to watch it, but hope it doesn't get much backlash from Christians!

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  16. Interesting film to see, let me check out the trailer in Youtube first. I'm not sure if I want to watch it too, being that it's not based from the Bible and written by a novelist who's famous for her Vampire works.

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  17. Thanks for sharing this, the story looks interesting to me and I can pick up some knowledge as well. I will check it out online.

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  18. I find the story interesting as well. Though there are no concrete evidences of the life of Jesus during his childhood, I always have these thoughts in mind, what if that it did happen or perhaps, the idea that he made several miracles throughout his childhood, right? Anyway, I will try to watch this movie whenever I get the chance. Thanks for sharing your synopsis about this film.

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