Well, the reviews for “The Passion of The Christ” (not just any Christ, it’s the Christ) are in, and they’re surprisingly split down the middle. Since positive reviews of this film are about as exciting to read as going to midnight mass sober, here’s some quotes from some of the more interesting negative reviews :

Planet Sick-Boy

To me, there’s absolutely no difference between the religious zealots in the film who scream for Jesus’s death and the real-life people four-walling entire theatres to see The Passion with their flock. There is, however, great irony in the fact that these same people who were gesticulating until their arms fell off when their kids saw Janet Jackson’s boob pop out are going to drag those same kids to one of the most graphically violent films ever made.

Los Angeles Daily News

Lost in the film’s beautifully lit orgy of abuse is the sense of who Jesus was and why the Jewish priests - Gibson’s villains in this old-fashioned melodrama - wanted him crucified. Gibson, who directed the film and co-wrote it with Benedict Fitzgerald, teases us with brief flashbacks of Jesus’ life - the Sermon on the Mount, the Last Supper, some tender moments with mother Mary. But these are just blips between the relentless brutality. Jesus’ suffering is all that matters in this movie.

New York Daily News

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.
. . .
The movie is a compendium of tortures that would horrify the regulars at an S&M club. Gibson spares not one cringing closeup to showcase what he imagines Jesus must have endured.

The lashings are so brutal that chunks of flesh go flying and blood rains like outtakes of “Kill Bill.”

The Romans capture their prey with the help of a terminally regretful Judas, then haul Him around to be whipped, beaten, spat upon, mutilated and finally crucified - all with the cheering encouragement of a ghoulish mob of Jews. No one in the crowd speaks up for Jesus, not even, strangely, his mother (Maia Morgenstern).

Religious intolerance has been used as an excuse for some of history’s worst atrocities. “The Passion of the Christ” is a brutal, nasty film that demonizes Jews at an unfortunate time in history.

The Star Ledger

It’s perhaps the height of irony that a self-professed true believer like Gibson could get it so wrong, and that an admitted sinner like Martin Scorsese could get it right. If so, it is an irony that the Jesus of the Gospels — who ate with sinners — could appreciate.

Because, while Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” showed us how Jesus died, Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” showed us how he lived. And reminded us that, it was not Jesus’ immunity from human frailties that made him a shining light. It was his ability to rise above them.

Newsday

Where, one wonders throughout, is the “tolerance, love and forgiveness” that Gibson has promised his audience? Where, beyond some furtive snatches of backstory, is the buoyant embrace of life and hope that Christ’s message represents to millions? This movie is little else besides a depiction of punishment so ruthless and unyielding that watching it unfold feels like punishment.

Cranky Critic

Two hours of gruesome, sadistic, stomach-turning and hard core graphically violent torture detached from any background information is not something to expose kids to, regardless of religion. Kids of a slightly older age may ask “Mommy? Why is Jesus a punching bag?” and then you can explain all the stuff about “dying for your sins,” and inflict enough psychological terror on the kid to require a good twenty years of therapy. Or you can blame the Jews which, intended or not, is the message the film delivers as Gibson caps the piece with all the high priests standing at the foot of the cross, looking, ah, regretful.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Emphasizing Jesus’ agony over His ecstasy, Gibson has delivered a blood-drenched epic more stunning for its brutal violence than for its depiction of the calvary. This work of obvious devotion may well be the first spiritual splatter film. It makes Gladiator and Braveheart - even Friday the 13th - seem mild by comparison.

Toronto Star

Even from my position of relative spiritual impoverishment, I have no doubt that Gibson believes completely and utterly in the divinity of his mission. From precisely the same position however, I also believe, just as completely and utterly, The Passion Of The Christ to be a work of fundamentalist pornography. What graphic sex is to the use of the body in hardcore porno, graphic violence is to destruction of the body of Christ in this Passion.

The Fresno Bee

If this were any other film and any other subject, “The Passion” would have been slapped with an NC-17 rating faster than you can say “Council of Nicaea.” And if it had been any story but the Passion, the care and extreme to which Gibson goes to depict each nuance of Jesus Christ’s suffering — down to the tidy little table on which the Roman soldiers keep their arsenal of whips, chains and blunt instruments — would have been roundly mocked for its fetishistic qualities.

Slate

You’re thinking there must be something to The Passion of the Christ besides watching a man tortured to death, right? Actually, no: This is a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie?The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre?that thinks it’s an act of faith. For Gibson, Jesus is defined not by his teachings in life?by his message of mercy, social justice, and self-abnegation, some of it rooted in the Jewish Torah, much of it defiantly personal?but by the manner of his execution.

And just for fun, here’s a hilarious quote from one of the positive reviews :

CAP Alert

Regarding Jim Caviezel, he spent so much time in full-body make-up that his skin blistered. Jim also spent much of his time in a loin cloth in the Italian winter, sometimes unable to speak due to the cold. Jim was obviously so absorbed into the part that he was able to overcome a lung infection, numerous cuts and bruises and a shoulder dislocation to finish the picture. Interesting to say the least, while working on Golgotha, Jim was struck by lightning — then got up and walked away. Obviously his part in the film was a labor of love for Jim. And it may be obvious to some that God intended for this film to be finished, the leading actor’s miseries notwithstanding.

Yeah, sure. God strikes people with lightning as a way of encouraging them. It’s sort of a religious high five.