TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Dave_Violence I first caught a glimpse of "The Miracle Maker" several years ago while traveling. I only saw about ten minutes, but what an interesting ten minutes. The story was so familiar - probably because it was as straight out of the Bible as it could be.I didn't even catch the name of the film... Thankfully, I was able to search in IMDb and found it. I rented it last week and, wow, magnificent - especially the "making of..." special feature. Several key things (my opinion) that put this film above all other Bible epics (and, listen up, Hollywood, a lot of what you adapt to film):1. The ethnicity of the actors isn't a distraction. That is, they're Semitic for the most part. Charlton Heston, in "In the Arena" expressed some bewilderment regarding his reply to Messala in "Ben Hur," "…because I'm a Jew…" The bewilderment stemming from the fact that Chuck Heston is a white Anglo/Scot American from the north-midwest. He doesn't look like he's of desert stock in "Ben-Hur," no matter how good he was. Max Von Sydow as Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told," along with other performers like Shelly Winters and Chuck Heston (as John the Baptist), is asking a lot and borderline offensive. (I say "borderline" because the producers of the film weren't trying to offend anyone with a bunch of white people playing Arabs, those were the stars they used, etc.) With the models in "The Miracle Maker," it's not even an issue. Now, sure, everyone's speaking English, and most likely Peter didn't speak like Scotty from Star Trek… But why mess up the movie with subtitles? On top of that, the Bible has been published in modern English since the 1500's, and diligently compared, etc., etc.; and the place-names and characters' names are known – what I'm saying is that the voices do not distract. 2. Playing it straight. "The Miracle Maker" is right out of the Bible. Jesus performs miracles. He is the Son of God. There's not an inkling of anything trying to explain away a miracle or anything else. The effect I came away with after watching the film was joy at seeing a great, great visualization of what's in the Bible, not, say, reservation or contemplation pertaining to this or that director's interpretation of the Bible. Note, though, a lot is left out – but it's tough to do it all in an hour and a half. It takes place off-camera, no? This is a plus, though, as the film would simply be five seconds of this, five seconds of that. Instead, the producers concentrated on what they considered key stories from the Gospels. At any rate, the continuity is good. 3. The resurrected Jesus is powerful, confident, relaxed, and even happy. This is the resurrected Jesus I know. 4. Highlight: Luke 24:25-31 is in the script word-for-word (to my best recollection).

Jackson Booth-Millard For a TV made film, and a probably clay made animation film, this is actually a really good attempt the story of a our saviour the Christ, King of the Jews and the son of God. Jesus (played by The English Patient's Ralph Fiennes) known as The Miracle Maker has many extraordinary powers, e.g. giving people strength to stand, helping catching many fish and turning water into wine. Unfortunately, there were those who feared him, and threatened to destroy him. So he was condemned to be crucified. Some sad moments, and just the few tiniest moments that seem a bit cheesy, but this religious story is still very interesting. Also starring Julie Christie as Rachel, Richard E. Grant as John the Baptist, Sir Ian Holm as Pontius Pilate, Lost in Space's William Hurt as Jairus, Tim McInnerny as Barabbas, Spider-Man 2's Alfred Molina as Simon the Pharisee and Miranda Richardson as Mary Magdalene. Worth watching!

Jimi the Saint I woke up this morning to the alarm on my bedroom TV. I could hear familiar voices... Ralph Fiennes?... Richard E Grant?... William Hurt?... When I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I realised that the program on BBC2 was an animated version on 'Jesus of Nazareth'.Not being a particularly religious disposition, this was not the reason that prevented me from getting up out of my nice warm bed. Alas, it was the unbelievable animation that bedazzled me. I come from a design/multimedia background, and so I found this example of animation very interesting, and the more I watched it, the more I was amazed.The flow of the animations; the realism of the characters' features; the expressions on their faces; the interlaced, drawn animation 'dream-sequences'; all these aspects aggregated to form a top class exhibition of animationary excellence.And to top it all off, the dialogue and storyline were superbly written in a way that would appeal to young AND old. I a twenty-nine year old man, but I have to admit that watching this brought a tear to my eye, and a lump in my throat.Whether this was an empathetic reaction to the plight of Jesus, or an inherent appreciation of the animation quality... one can only guess.10 out of 10 (and I only caught the last half hour!!) I shall be ordering a copy of this on DVD as a Christmas present. Thats the easy part... the hard part is deciding which one of my four favourite neices to give it to!

Kat Miss I don't care what most critics say. "The Miracle Maker" is going on my Ten Best List for 2000. I don't care if TV movies are not supposed to be on a Ten Best List. In my defense, I will say that it was a theatrical feature in England and Europe, where they have the courage to release challenging and original films like this one. Shame on Artisan for not giving this the theatrical release it deserved. Unfortunately, in this age of films aimed more and more at teenagers, films like "Pollock", "Dr. T and the Women" and "The Miracle Maker" get lost in the shuffle.While it is normally a caveat to condense a rich and lengthy story such as the life of Jesus Christ in a short running time, we already have a film that really goes into great detail about Jesus: Franco Zefferelli's 1977 masterpiece "Jesus of Nazareth". But this is a perfect film for enlightened children and even the parents will love it. The switching from claymation (which is not really clay, but that is unimportant right now)to regular animation is stunning, not distracting as it would be in a lesser film. It is easily the best animated film I've seen all year. Kudos to Mel Gibson and his production company, Icon, for putting the time and effort to making a wonderful film like this. I only wish Artisan had gotten behind it better, along with another Icon production "Felicia's Journey". I recommend both to anyone who wants to see pure cinema at its' finest.**** out of 4 stars