The Last Temptation of Christ is a pretty accurate depiction of the life of Jesus Christ – that is, if Jesus were a crack addict, or a lunatic off the street. The Jesus of The Last Temptation bears absolutely no resemblance to the Jesus of the Bible. Christ here is anything but divine; he hears voices in his head and he’s not sure if they’re from God or from Satan. He’s in love with Mary Magdalene but is too afraid to do anything about it. In fact, he’s afraid of everything, as he often says. He hates people but for some reason when he speaks, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is “love”. The message of love only lasts so long though, as he soon discovers his true calling is to bring down an axe on the people and trash the temple. The story is so absolutely absurd that it’s often laughable.

I can understand a story that would want to explore the human side of Christ. In fact, I think it could actually be rather enlightening to depict a Christ that sometimes did have reservations about his role on earth. But The Last Temptation of Christ is so exaggerated, so ridiculous, it’s difficult to see something other than an attempt at Christian-bashing. What if a film depicted Martin Luther King as a psychopath? It wouldn’t fly for a second.

At its start, The Last Temptation of Christ claims not to be an account of the Gospels, but an exploration of “eternal spiritual conflict.” The conflict involves the struggle between the spirit and the desires of the body. Jesus struggles with the weaknesses of the flesh and teaches the superiority of the spirit over the body until the final titular temptation, where he contemplates leaving the cross to go start a family with Mary Magdalene. The film makes its point mildly, but it all takes a backseat to the bizarre portrayal of the character of Christ.

I've heard various complaints about the Catholic slant to The Passion of the Christ, but The Passion’s imagery doesn’t hold a candle to the clearly Catholic angle in The Last Temptation. Beginning with the particularly Catholic dilemma of spirit vs. body, Temptation also includes a Catholic baptism of Jesus and even a stigmata in Christ’s hands prior to the crucifixion.

The Catholic slant is interesting considering there is so much that is clearly anti-Catholic. While half of the film is of Catholic influence, the other half is late 20th Century “intellectualism”. This is the life of Christ as interpreted by the modern Left. At one point, Jesus himself spits out liberal rhetoric about the vanity and insignificance of organized religion. It’s frankly difficult to take anything seriously in this film.

The film is, however, rather thought provoking. Tightly written, there’s not much here that doesn’t have some significance, symbolic or otherwise. William Defoe provides a stately but occasionally scary portrayal of Christ, allowing us to believe this guy might just belong in a nuthouse. David Bowie has an out-of-place stint as Pontius Pilot.

Perhaps I ought to listen to the director’s commentary, but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why Scorsese would want to tell such a story. In the end, it all just feels like ploy for controversy in the name of art. For better or for worse, it’s not worth the hype.

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