by Joe Bob Briggs
The problem with movies about Jesus is that I already know how they come out. That's why "The Last Temptation of Christ" is so great. You never know what this wacky guy is gonna do next!
Okay, okay, okay, most of you know by now that I hadn't been inside a hard-top movie theater since 1967, and that was only to get change for a 20, but I had to see this one. All my Babtist buddies, all my Pentecostal buddies, all my friends in the Citizens For Decency of Tupelco, Mississippi, that had the march on the World Headquarters of 7-Eleven three years back--everybody was in town for the grand opening. They decided to suggest that the makers of this movie should have their heads blown off in a Christian manner, and they were carrying signs that said stuff like "My Savior Thinks This Movie Has Cooties" and other christian sentiments, and whenever there's a protest of that size, it normally means you're gonna see at least 60, 70 nekkid breasts and somebody's head blown off. I been using their recommendations for years.
So all right, yes, I admit it, I'm not proud of it, but I went indoors to see this flick. But I know the J-Man will forgive me for that. Because this is His best performance in several centuries.
It starts out with Jesus on a bad acid trip. He roots around in the dirt all the time and hangs out with talking snakes and faints and twitches a lot and watches Mary Magdalene make the sign of the triple-jointed electric eel in a cave full of Iranians. Mary Mag has some body tattoos that make her look like she spent the '70s in a biker gang, and she tries to manipulate the J-Man into marrying her by saying she wouldn't to be imitating the burrowing back-weasel if it wasn't for the fact that Jesus is not into marriage. "Get a life!" she tells Him.
One thing I like about this Jesus, compared to the 11-hour miniseries Jesus, is that this guy doesn't mess around. He does the Sermon on the Mount in, like, two minutes. It's more like the Sermonette on the Mount, and then he gets back to the important stuff like washing a hooker's feet.
Then, when he finally meets John the Baptist, John looks like he just crawled up out of a Good-will box. He's a crazy old coot who's been hanging around the Salvation Army office growing stuff in his hair. In fact, it's Andre! Remember the guy from "My Dinner With Andre"? It's him! NOBODY will listen to the guy, and who can blame em. We had to listen to him for two hours already in that other movie.
Anyhow, Jesus makes it out into the desert, sits in the dirt some more, and Satan sends some zoo animals to tempt him. The desert is always the best place to be tempted by the devil, which is why I personally spend so much time in Tucumcari, New Mexico. But anyhow, first a snake asks him to look at the snake's garbonzas, but a snake don't have garbonzas, so that don't work. Then a lion tells him he's a liar. Then a ball of fire talks with a British accent. Jesus eats a big old bloody apple, chops down a tree, and then he goes to see Mary and Martha, who are telling him "God doesn't want you to fast and pray. he wants you to make children!" As you can see, now God's sending the real test--more women trying to manipulate him into marryin em.
Next thing, Jesus gets some disciples that all look like they oughta be named Akbar, and then he rips his heart out of his chest and shows it to the disciples, then he becomes real popular with the disciples by turning water into wine, and then he tells his mother to buzz off--we're staying pretty close to scripture at this point--and then we get to one of my personal favorite scenes: Lazarus. you know, it's not something you like to think about, but when Jesus did that, Lazarus had already been down in that tomb for a couple, three days, and he was stink, besides which he looked like Jason after he's been killed in "Friday the 13th Part 5." Then Saul of Tarsus comes along--it's Harry Dean Stanton, the Repo Man!- -and he asks Lazarus which was better, alive or dead, and Lazarus says "There wasn't that much difference," and so Saul kills him.
And then the rest of it is pretty much straight out of the Bible until you get to the part at the end where he's nekkid on the cross, trying to figure out SOME OTHER WAY for the story to end. And that's the part that my buddy Donny Wildman of the Citizens For Decency says oughta be censored off the face of the earth. It's where this guardian angel that looks like a Valley Girl Brat Pack reject with a British accent comes and gets him off the cross and takes him on a picnic and reintroduces him to Mary Magdalene and they get married, and then she dies, and then he marries the OTHER Mary, of Mary-and-Martha fame, only he gets a little from Martha on the side, and then there's a whole lot of that obnoxious Middle Eastern flute music, until he's an old man dying on his bed and he thinks to himself, "You know, I think I did something wrong here," and then Paul and Judas show him that little Brat Packer was really the devil and he better get his hiney back up on the cross where he belongs. And so he does. And it IS where he belongs. And it IS a temptation he probly had. And it IS something you'd think about if YOU were up there, no matter what my Babtist brothers been saying.
It's a great flick. Eight breasts. Three dead bodies, minus two risen including Lazarus, equals one. Talking snakes. Voices. Visions. Kiss of death. Beating. Lashing. Hooker tattoos. Ubangi water worship. LSD special effects. Foot-kissing. Foot-washing. Froth-mouth devil-casting. Heart-ripping. Dead-raising. Ear- lopping. Gratuitous British accents. Lion Fu. Money changer Fu. Jerusalem Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Willem Dafoe, as the J-Man, for hanging up there on the cross in a way that you really BELIEVE it, and for telling God "I'm not gonna leave here until you speak to me!"; Andre Gregory, as John the Babtist, for saying "God demands anger!"' Harry Dean Stanton, as Saul of Tarsus, for saying "So Lazarus, how do you feel?"; Harvey Keitel, as Judas, the greatest Judas in the history of Judases for saying "Rabbi, you broke my heart"; David Bowie, as Pilate, for saying "Unfortunately for you, we don't want things changed"; fBarbara Hershey, as Mary Magdalene, for inspired aardvarking; and Martin Scorsese, who fought Christians for 15 years till somebody finally agreed to let him make the movie, for doing it the drive-in way.
Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.