The Gospel of John poster & wallpaper

Alan Van Sprang, Christopher Plummer, Daniel Kash

This word-for-word adaptation of the 21 chapters of the Gospel According to John tells story of Jesus' life -- mostly focusing on his final hours, his crucifixion and the events that followed -- from ...( read more  read more... )disciple John's point of view. The epic film draws its audience into antiquity through meticulous re-creation, including an original musical score complete with instrumental sounds of the time. Christopher Plummer narrates much of the film.

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90% liked it

245 ratings

Critics

38% liked it

48 critics

PG-13

Directed by: Philip Saville

Release Date: September 26, 2003

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DVD Release Date: April 6, 2004

Stats: 53 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (53)

  • jamere192007
    November 22, 2009
    jamere192007
    The Gospel of John is a narrated film about Jesus Christ and his journey to fulfill the needs of God. As the movie begins we meet a man named John who claims that he is sent by the messiah to baptized all the people in Bethlehem. John announced to all the people that he had seen ...( read more)Jesus walk past, so Andrew and his brother Simon followed Jesus. Andrew, Simon, James, John, Philip, Nathaniel, Matthew, Thomas, and Judas were the disciples chosen by Jesus. The disciples went on a long journey with Jesus leaving behind all of their human possessions. Jesus reached a Samariatian lady and asked for her to give him water. But she refused to give Jesus water because he was not the Messiah or the man that is well respected of the Samaritians. When Jesus told her that he knew she had five husbands and was not married to the man that lived with, she was stunned and told the lady that he was the Messiah. The lady ran off to tell all the people she had meant the Messiah and he knew all about her. Then all the Samariatians wanted Jesus to stay with them. Jesus once turned water that came from stone water jars used for cleaning clothes into wine. The people loved him and spoke greatly of him because he had saved the best for the last. This was the first miracle Jesus that Jesus had performed and his disciples beleived in him more. Jesus told the men in Jerusalem that he would tear down his temple and rebuild it in three days but he men did not understand what temple Jesus was speaking about. Jesus taught that those who beleived in him will live on eternally but those who did not would be judged on judment day. The second miracle Jesus performed was when he brought a man back to life. The third miracle Jesus performed was in Jerusalem on a man that had been sick for thirty-five years. Jewish persacuted Jesus because he healed a man on the Sabbath day and referred to himself as the son of God. Jesus taught that all of the dead will hear him and those who done good will rise and live eternally and those who have done evil will rise and be condemned. Jesus prayed to God among fish and bread and recieved enough to feed all of the people there. Jesus could do things like turn rain into a sunny day and walk on top of water as if it was land. Jesus taugh his disciples, dressed in all white, inside a temple with candles lit on the wall. Jesus offered the people his flesh and blood to live eternal life in Heaven. The jewish authorities did not like Jesus and wanted him dead, they did not like the way Jesus spoke about God and Moses. The Jewish believed Moses brought true life and meaning of like and offer eternal peace, but Jesus knew better. Jesus spoke of the spirits as if it was food, water, and life itself. This movie is related to the World Religion text because it talks about the life of Jesus Christ and he journey. The book also talks about how Jewish believes in Moses and so does the movie. The bible we use in church often refers Jesus as the rabi sent by God to guide and save all the people from the Devil. The Devil is God alterego, which wanted to destroy God and everything he believed in. I feel like this movie help get a very good visual about Jesus and what he trying to accomplish. I have been going to church since I was a little girl, and not until today do I better understand not only chirstianity but buddhism, judiasm, and all the other religions we have worked on in this class.
  • delebonyshw
    November 21, 2009
    delebonyshw
    John's Gospel is unique among four Gospels. It records much about Jesus's ministry in Judea and Jerusalem and reveals more fully the mystery of his personhood. According to several ancient sources the ederly apostle John was respected by the elders of Asia to write this spiritual...( read more) Gospel in order to counteract a heresy about the nature, person, and deity of Jesus. The movie relates to Christianity in that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing we might have life through his name.

    The Gospel of John was written two generations after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Although crucifixion was the preferred Roman method of punishmet, it was not one sanctinoned by Jewish law. Jesus and all his early followers were Jewish. John was the forerunner of christ. He was the one that announced the messiah would come. He came to prepare the way for Jesus. Johns job was to baptize people with water. This movie shows how Jesus went throughout the land choosing his twelve disciples one by one. There was also many miracles perfomed in this movie for example Jesus turning the water into wine. It shows how Jesus ventured to Caprineum and then to Jerusalem. It upset Jesus to find that the temple was being used for a market place. Also in this movie it showed how Jesus walked on water. This was really a great movie because it goes on to where Jesus realizes that one of his disciples will betray him, and it's basically getting down to his last hour. He specifies the disciple out by giving him a piece of bread with sauce on it. This was the disciple Judas. So judah goes out and brings the authorities back to where he knew Jesus would be. This is when he is arrested an tooken to higher authorities. They beat him, but could not find nothing to condemn him for. The higher authoritiy tries to free Jesus, but the Jewish authorities insist on crusifixion. Jesus was crusified and rose again. In spite of seven convincing signs, and seven profound dicourses the Jews rejected him as their Messiah. The movie included Jesus last supper, his last dscourses, and his final hour with his disciples. The new covenant was then initiated and established by his death and resurrection.

    The Gospel of John trailer on Flixster.com
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  • yohanphillips
    November 4, 2009
    yohanphillips
    Best Jesus's story !! Touching this will change your life he die for us This word-for-word adaptation of the 21 chapters of the Gospel According to John tells story of Jesus' life - "Thank God I saw this movie"
  • briankueck
    June 13, 2009
    briankueck
    The BEST Movie Ever! If you want to see what Love is, watch this... make sure to watch the 3 hour version. You'll walk away feeling loved.
  • Tecnoandre
    March 17, 2009
    Tecnoandre
    This is the most beautiful film about Jesus that i´ve seen.
  • rachelpinkrox
    December 6, 2008
    rachelpinkrox
    This would be a good movie to see. It has a powerful message.
  • ObsessiveOne
    October 20, 2008
    ObsessiveOne
    I have to admit that I mainly saw this movie because HIC(my new favorite actor) was playing Jesus, but the film turned out not to be that bad actually.
  • jfvirey
    August 22, 2008
    jfvirey
    A few years ago, I bought a copy of the Visual Bible?s "Gospel of Matthew", which is a word for word reading of the original text with a voice over reading the narrative parts and actors mouthing the dialogues and monologues. I was not very enthusiastic about it, and the DVD has ...( read more)remained mostly unwatched on my shelves since then. So it took quite a lot of persuading by many Internet reviewers to convince me to give this adaptation of the Gospel of John a chance.

    For me, so far, there have been three excellent Jesus movies (and I may have seen a couple you haven?t even heard of) : Zeffirelli?s "Jesus of Nazareth", Hayes and Sokolov?s "The Miracle Maker", and Mel Gibson?s "The Passion of the Christ". The rest I would consider to range from mediocre to abysmal. (My perfect Jesus movie would be an adaptation of Anne Rice?s "Christ the Lord" series by Hayao Miyazaki, but I don?t see that happening.)

    Well, I am pleased to report that I consider "The Gospel of John" to have joined the small circle of brilliant Jesus movies. Of course, it is not perfect. The main problem is that the text the producers chose is that of the "Good News Bible", a modern English translation that is far from being the most accurate or the most literary. Then the actress chosen to play Mary is too old, not half as beautiful as she should be, and devoid of any spiritual aura (it takes a Catholic to get Mary right, maybe because Protestants tend to forget Luke 1, 48 while we pray the rosary), Jesus doesn?t walk right (he reminded me of Tony Robinson on a Time Team dig, and occasionally of a belly dancer) and is a bit too sexy (twice women seem about to kiss him), Mary Magdalene (Gormenghast?s Linsey Baxter) wears too much make up... but these are relatively minor squabbles, and when you think of all that can go wrong in a Jesus movie (and usually does), it is quite a relief to see that virtually all the rest goes from good to perfect (including the walking on the waters scene, which usually makes me cringe.) And if the violence of Gibson?s Passion was too much for you, then you will probably be pleased to learn that the flogging is just shadows on the wall and the nailing to the Cross and the breaking of the legs of the thieves are performed off-screen. Jesus is also much less austere and much more engaging than he seems to be on the movie poster, though he is not as supernatural and ascetic as Robert Powell?s.

    What I loved most about the movie was perhaps the acting, which I would describe as the best I have seen outside of "Battlestar Galactica". Three scenes in particular stand out in my mind : the meeting with the Samaritan woman (Nancy Palk) was particularly moving (even though I imagined her as slightly younger and more flirtatious) ; the cure of the blind man (Stuart Fox) was also very well acted ; and I was touched by the inner radiance of Mary of Bethany (Miriam Hughes, who by the way is also very cute) : when the two sisters Mary and Martha are shown for the first time, you don?t need to be told which is which, the casting is that good. And I am only mentioning actors who have only a few minutes of screen time.

    The score was also very beautiful, so much so that I am considering buying the CD. Perhaps not all the credit should go to Jeff Danna, the composer, however, as he didn?t write the orchestrations, and there seem to have been borrowings from other sources, mostly from Psalms, Christian aramaic chants and other vocal pieces sung by Esther Lamandier (whose work I intend to investigate) but also from a symphony by Valentin Silvestrov (who seems to have written some beautiful music for piano, though his orchestral work sounds a bit too modern to my ears.)

    Fans of 24 will be also be pleased to recognize Carlo Rota (Chloe?s boyfriend) hidden under the helmet and beard of the lead Temple Guard, and trekkies will enjoy the perfect narration by Christopher Plummer, though they probably would have preferred the original Klingon.

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Critic Reviews

April 2, 2004
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

The sad truth is that director Philip Saville and writer John Goldsmith have made a picture book rather than a film, one that leans so heavily on Christopher Plummer's placid voice-over narration as t... full review

View more The Gospel of John reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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