40
Washington Post by Ann Hornaday
A slick, earnest, ultimately inert adaptation of the eponymous book of the Bible.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
It's interesting to see a movie of this kind based on a single gospel, with no additions or interpolations from other sources. But except for a few scenes that evoke the reverent beauty of Renaissance painting, the filmmaking and acting are awfully stiff -- certainly not worthy of the timeless story being told.
60
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Though it has loftier aims, it is in reality strictly a film made by believers for believers. It's like the Discovery Channel version of the Greatest Story Ever Told, an earnest, not particularly distinguished piece of work that has none of the touch of the poet that made Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" such a triumph.
40
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
A dramatization of the life of Christ that takes as its script a word-for-word translation of the Gospel according to John, the adaptation is not so much tedious as pointless.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen
This well-made epic boasts carefully researched production values and the talents of classically trained actors, but by literally playing it by the book, the picture loses something dramatic in the translation.
50
Baltimore Sun by Michael Sragow
Watching The Gospel of John is like listening to a religious audiotape while working a picture flip-book of the Bible.
42
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Altogether too faithful to its source. The makers of this ponderously middlebrow Canadian production have re-created the Gospel of John in its pristine entirety -- word for word, miracle for miracle.
75
San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein
Surprisingly robust.
80
It aims simply to relate a great and enveloping story -- one that may lead us to ponder the things that unite (rather than distance) peoples of differing belief systems, and may compel us to marvel at the many wonderful and horrible endeavors undertaken in the name of religion.
80
Dramatically powerful, surprising in its strong narrative differences from previous cinematic tellings of "the greatest story" and bold in the extent to which it presents Jesus as a confrontational and threatening figure in the Judean context of the time.