Apostle Peter and the Last Supper

Apostle Peter and the Last Supper (2012)

 Early in the morning when I couldn’t sleep on Monday of Holy week, I decided to watch an appropriate Lenten film so I want on Netflix and choose to watch ‘Apostle Peter and the Last Supper’. I would watch the ‘The Bible miniseries’ on the History channel but I don’t have cable and must wait for it to come to DVD.

 The title character, Simon Peter the apostle (and first supreme pontiff) relates the tale of his experience with Christ to two Roman jailers in this particular film version of the beloved classic ‘The Bible’.  The idea of Peter telling his story right before his execution upside down on a cross is an interesting premise, but the execution of the film is not as interesting and is rather lacking due to the slack in the acting. The acting is very sub-par and is emphasized most clearly in their choice for savior of the world, whom is not the savior of this picture.

 The first look of Jesus with his wide goofy grin and non-orthodox short cut hair made me think “Is that really supposed to be Christ?” “Are they joking”? He looks like a rather unwell individual and not the son of God. Jim Caviezel he is not. In neither style nor substance. When he is teaching and preaching to the other actors on the set, he makes the case for the most unconvincing Jesus in the history of biblical cinematic storytelling.  

 APATLS tries to pithy by taking a page out of Mel Gibson’s (superior) ‘The Passion of the Christ’ by having a demon figure come and torment poor Peter. It is undecided by myself if I will continue with this film or just put in the DVD of 1951’s ‘Quo Vadis’ which comes from the golden era of biblical filmmaking.  It is possible the film may present some unique and creative storytelling and rise above average modern Christian filmmaking, but chances are I’m better off with the classics. There are worse movies to spend your time watching but better ones also.

 If only they had filmed the story of Peter in the golden era of biblical epic film making.  Well actually they did produce ‘The Big Fisherman’ in 1959 which was nominated for 3 Oscars. But alas, if only they had released this movie on DVD.