Reviews of "The Passion": extremely mixed.

[Pale Blue Dot]

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/passionofthechrist/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ThePassionoftheChrist-1129941/

"In the end, one can respect Gibson's high intentions and dedicated work, while remaining spiritually and dramatically unmoved by the result."
-- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"The Passion of the Christ is powerfully moving and fanatically obtuse in equal doses."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

ReelViews / James Berardinelli:
A gripping, powerful motion picture -- arguably the most forceful depiction of Jesus' death ever to be committed to film. It leaves an indelible imprint on the psyche; viewers of this movie may never look at a crucifix in quite the same way.

New York Daily News / Jami Bernard:
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II. It is sickening.

[ikojo]

1. I would hope that after seeing the graphic depiction of a crucifixion

(the ROMAN equivelant of the electric chair and the means by which they carried out the death penalty) that people would begin to question the way the US kills its criminals and such.

[Loonman]

2. Crucifixion was only for special cases

Romans beheaded capital offenders.

Crucifixion was used only if they really wanted to make an example of you.

[chiburb]

3. My fave review, Denby/New Yorker...

Snip:

In “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson shows little interest in celebrating the electric charge of hope and redemption that Jesus Christ brought into the world. He largely ignores Jesus’ heart-stopping eloquence, his startling ethical radicalism and personal radiance—Christ as a “paragon of vitality and poetic assertion,” as John Updike described Jesus’ character in his essay “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew.” Cecil B. De Mille had his version of Jesus’ life, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Martin Scorsese had theirs, and Gibson, of course, is free to skip over the incomparable glories of Jesus’ temperament and to devote himself, as he does, to Jesus’ pain and martyrdom in the last twelve hours of his life. As a viewer, I am equally free to say that the movie Gibson has made from his personal obsessions is a sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood, and agony—and to say so without indulging in “anti-Christian sentiment” (Gibson’s term for what his critics are spreading). For two hours, with only an occasional pause or gentle flashback, we watch, stupefied, as a handsome, strapping, at times half-naked young man (James Caviezel) is slowly tortured to death. Gibson is so thoroughly fixated on the scourging and crushing of Christ, and so meagrely involved in the spiritual meanings of the final hours, that he falls in danger of altering Jesus’ message of love into one of hate.

What is most depressing about “The Passion” is the thought that people will take their children to see it. Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” not “Let the little children watch me suffer.” How will parents deal with the pain, terror, and anger that children will doubtless feel as they watch a man flayed and pierced until dead? The despair of the movie is hard to shrug off, and Gibson’s timing couldn’t be more unfortunate: another dose of death-haunted religious fanaticism is the last thing we need.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/