Brightlyme
i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.
Beystiman
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Haven Kaycee
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
sfoltzpdx
We start this movie with a Pharisee (Saul) and a Saducee (Reuben) wrestling, Greek style.That's only the first of other apparent liberties the producers took with this movie. Peter is then represented as a doubting Thomas (after the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven!) who just doesn't know how to go on with the "mission".Pentecost is shown fairly accurately, except for the fact that no one rushes to see what the commotion is about, the apostles do not speak in tongues, and the movie just moves to a still doubting Peter, who decides on the spur of the moment to preach to some random Jews, out of whom he makes three converts vs the biblical account of more than 3,000. No one is baptized in the manner any Jew would expect (full immersion) from a proselyte. Those were enough blatant inaccuracies for me to turn the movie off. After reading about the fictional Reuben and the unnecessary nudity in other reviews, I'm glad I did.
BeckyandJesus
Didn't expect much from this because I had heard it had some extra biblical content. I wasn't too bothered about that as all the other bible series movies had their extra scenes. It certainly wasn't terrible there was some pretty decent parts. It was well filmed and had great music. Acting was great. I found they portrayed Saul/Paul as quite nice before he snapped. Suddenly he just went evil when not long before had not wanted to stone Stephen...I didn't like that as it just didn't make sense. Stephen's vision of heaven was erased completely!!! Also, no tongues when the Holy Spirit came to the apostles either! Paul does wrestle which I knew was in this by others reviews. Pretty stupid but none of these bible collection films (by Lube?) have been perfect. Several characters not in the bible were in this and others were left out. That was disappointing. They focused heavily on this "Reuben" character set out to kill Paul. And his Christian wife named "Dinah" these two aren't even in the bible. I was wondering what happened to John as he vanished not too long into the film? It really wasn't necessary to show a woman's bare breasts to depict a sex scene. Disgusting having this in a biblical film Christians are going to see!! Some parts were nice. I liked Peter a whole lot. He had this gentleman stubbornness and seemed so like PETER to me. I think the Damascus road scene was OK but he went blind, he didn't see people in a photoshop filter. I liked the journey scenes and most of the scenes after Paul received his sight. I gave it a 6 as it could've been worse but I did like it to an extent.
youtubefacebook-864-991500
I totally think it was not the best movie to see for Saint Paul's life. But there is one reason to watch it over and over again. And the reason is Thomas Lockyer- Reuben if you like. Yes, I agree that he is a fictional character just like Dinah. But it's a very well performed one too. Thomas looks amazing and magnetic in this film, charming but psycho at the same time.Yes, his girlfriend is the best looking one in the whole bible series, but he deserved that! They are both fake characters but artistically speaking, they make the movie more interesting. And that's the reason there is the sex scene after the wedding. I agree it's not very biblical but useful to make more complete their characters and the situation more realistic. There are other mistakes too like Barnabas baptizing Saul by his own command or Saul being also interested in Dinah. Another well performed role was Barnaba's, who was a little funny too, again to make the movie more interested.I recommend the movie only if you are interested in performances(-and let's face it- Thomas Lockyer's will indemnify you)
stitch-99
I attend a Bible college in NE and a friend of mine got a hold of this film and we watched it on the hall. This is my story.From a film standpoint, I was drawn in by the acting (with the possible exception of Dinah), as well as by the story, mostly. For the most part, everything was good. I especially liked the fact that Bailey had a bearable role in this film, as opposed to his portrayal of Livio in the previous film Jesus. I was taken aback by several scenes' inclusion that had nothing to do with Paul (e.g. the execution of the guards, pretty much the entire 20 minutes where Paul was in the desert), but the film ultimately gets back to Paul.From a historical view, I myself didn't notice anything wrong. However, the guys I was watching it with would often interrupt to say that something wasn't culturally accurate (most notably, the wrestling intro).I interpreted the fictional character of Rueben as largely a personification of the same type of attitude that Saul had (hence their friendship and then enmity). My disbelief was suspended slightly when he was assigned to hunt down and kill Paul, but it's not an insurmountable obstacle.The character of Dinah, to the best of my reasoning, was extrapolated out of the conflicting theories on whether or not Paul was married. However, she took on a much larger role. I didn't find her role as Rueben's unwitting informant very believable or necessary.Also, consider yourselves warned: this film does contain brief nudity. Early in the film, Saul and Rueben are seen from behind, bathing. More notably, however, was the honeymoon scene. I recall my troupe watching it and one asking if Christians made this movie. We told him yes and he was disappointed that he wasn't going to see breasts. However, three seconds later, she took off her top and was seen topless for a considerable amount of time (by the way, this prompted a freak-out among the audience). Take that how you will.Some have voiced disgust with the film as an adaption, claiming it leaves out important details, creates too many of its own, or replaces too many. I, myself, felt that the details left out were done so with good reason: they weren't relevant. I don't think that too many elements were invented as explained above in my analysis of Rueben and Dinah's characters. As for replacing elements (the most prominent example being Rome, not Mark, being the cause of Paul and Barnabas' split), I did notice them but wasn't too upset about them After all, Mark could very well have been a subtext of that conversation. However, introducing and developing him would take too much time (not that they didn't waste time on anything else...).One final note: the film is fairly long. I knew that going into it and I still felt like it was longer than it actually was.All-in-all, this was an enjoyable film. I would not recommend it if you have aversions to stylistic inaccuracies, nudity (unless you just skip over it), fictional characters sharing the screen with biblical ones, long movies, a few pointless scenes, or simply parts of the biblical narrative being *gasp* omitted. Still, if you can get past those things, you will enjoy this (I realized just now that I sound like I'm joking. Well, I'm not. It's a decent movie).