CB DeMille It Ain't

Rating: Null/10 (23 April 2010)

Okay, after 250 comments what's left to say. Personally, I took the movie as a send-up of those god-awful biblical costume epics of the 1950's. One's like The Silver Chalice (1954) or David and Bathsheba (1951), et al. You know, the kind that gave you 90 minutes of sex and violence and then 10 minutes of redeeming religiosity spread on with a trowel. That way you could enjoy the fun stuff without guilt, and Hollywood could show it had gotten rid of all those Commie screenwriters of the 1940's.
I don't know how they did it, but this is the most realistic looking Holy Land that I've seen— the parched countryside, the magnificent battlements, the ragged crowds, etc. The budget couldn't have been that big, but the settings are impressive in their realism—not what you'd expect from a send-up like this.
Anyway, it's a funny movie. And if it doesn't exactly end with the voice of God, it does end on a humorously ironic note—all those crucifees hanging there, singing "Look on the Bright Side of Life". Beneath the black humor, there may well be real wisdom, and who's to say that this is not, in its own way, a voice from above.