Will You see Gibson's "The Passion"?

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I saw it. Very brutal. First time in a movie the entire crowd actually turned their heads at scenes. Still, I thought the camera's use of angles and tracking shots blocked out much of it.

It's brutal in two ways. Primarily, the one being that the violence isn't "horror movie" violence, and is made to look quite realistic. The other being it actually happened to a real person.

Overall, I thought the movie was good, but it could have been a lot better. Some of the details I didn't particularly like (like Judas being haunted by demons) and I felt detracted from the story a bit. The relationship between Jesus and Mary is played out to be a very strong and intimate one, which I thought really, really helped the movie. The other qualm I had was the sheer humanity of Jesus. He was human, yet was regardless the Son of God. I felt that in points in the movie it took almost a Book of Job-esque approach, placing Jesus into the role of an unknowing, reluctant man punished by an angry God. While I thought the humanity of Jesus would be emphasized, I thought it was done a bit too much. Also, I think Gibson should have focused on historical fact instead of merely improvising scenes. I'm not a Biblical scholar, so I wouldn't know, but there were scenes and anachronisms which I didn't think fit quite well at the time.

I could also see how some would view this as anti-Semetic. The Jewish priests and their followers are a rily, evil, and ugly bunch. They come complete with bad teeth and hideous laughter to boot. They are relentless in their pursuit of Jesus' crucifixtion, even though they have no moral ground to stand on. Apparently Gibson revels in the farce of poking fun at the mob, mercilessly portraying them as a gang of thugs and henchmen. To be fair, however, there are Jewish people within the movie who show sympathy for Jesus, and who go out of their way to help him.

Overall, great film. But be cautious of the violence. It gets pretty bad at parts.