Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Salubfoto
It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
Scott Baldwin (Meven_Stoffat)
Happy Easter, everyone!!! Love is in the air!!!... just not on IMDb, and especially not on my review of this demolition of a classic.I'm one of the few who thinks Andrew Lloyd Webber is the worst thing to happen to musical theatre and the cause of the downfall of modern society. I think that JCS is quite possibly the ONE good thing that he has ever been a part of, and it was one of my favourite movies as a child. This weekend, this remake aired on TV, and I figured this would be a good watch, eh? No, actually.First off, the look of the movie is incredibly awful. I totally don't believe this was shot at Pinewood- for starters, this film looks like a cross between a commercial for some 1990's street clothing company, and a Colour Me Badd music video. What's with all the graffiti??? Are they trying to make this a "street tough" JCS??? Lots accuse the 70's movie of being too "hippie", but I respectfully disagree, and besides, even if it was, it still would be way better than this trainwreck of a film. Especially hilarious was the Pilate's Dream scene... it looked like a gay porn spoof of Aladdin.The cast is HORRIBLE!!!! The one good performer in this is Tony Vincent... shame he got a role so small (Simon) and below his INCREDIBLE range!!! And why does he look like a gay stripper in this movie???? He should have been Judas. Speak of the devil (no pun intended), Jerome Pradon is quite possibly the worst singer ever to make it to the stage. His voice is so nasal and whimpy. And then there are times I thought I was listening to Yogi Bear singing. I actually laughed during Heaven on their Mind, when he yelled "JEEEEEESSSUUUUUSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!". Actually, since I recorded this on my PVR, I go back and rewind that part over and over if I need a laugh. Then, there's Glen Carter... and even he sucked!!!! His falsetto was so bad, he even made me laugh in the wrong places too. "MOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY TAMPLAH SHAD BEEEEHHH A HOOOOSEEEE OF PRAAAAHAAAAYAAAAHHHHRRRRRR!!!!!" don't get me started. Those calling him good, GET YOUR EARS CHECKED. Also, I love when he over-emphasizes "obssessed" in "What's the Buzz"... "Whah ah you Obsessed with faaaatttting!!!!!" Mary sounds like she's singing with her throat. Pilate?? Let me just say he has nothing on Barry Dennen's kick-ass rasp that totally added.As for the production in general... I gotta give props to Tony because he really acted and sang his face off in this trainwreck. Why did they make Judas a leather jacket-wearing punk who acts creepily around women (what was with the flirting during "Everything's alright"? Why does Herod look like Al Capone??? Why does Jesus come off as a wimp who looks like Robert Plant in a wifebeater??? Why does Judas wear red in the finale and sing spitefully in Jesus' face during "Superstar"? WHy does Jesus cry like a baby during the crucifixion? Why does Jesus deliver his final line like "I commend... MYYYYYYYYY SPPPIIIIIIIIIIIRIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!" (on the same topic, does whoever directed this think a man who got whipped senselessly, forced to carry his own cross, nailed and hung from the cross have the energy to do that?!?!?!?!)?. Oh, and don't forget, I was just yelling "Hurry up and die already!" at the screen during the crucifixion... not a good sign.Just avoid this disaster. Seek the 73 version out because it's a rockin' movie, and Carl Anderson and Ted Neely FTW.
fedorafreak-1
I really am stupefied by the amount of people who claim to be 'longtime fans' of the original 1973 performance that actually PREFER this ridiculously terrible movie.Let's ignore, for a moment, the poor casting decisions that may have been made. Let's ignore the fact that Judas didn't have the voice for Judas, that Jesus didn't have the range for Jesus, and that nearly every attempt made to add vibrato to any character's voice ended up sounding more like a car going over road bumps.After all, compared to the rest of the movie, that's relatively minor stuff.Let's start on what they did with the Judas character. In JC '73, Judas is a principled man who loves Jesus as much if not more than the rest of the disciples. He is not a bad man by any stretch. Rather, he is a sort of tragic protagonist. He betrays Jesus in an attempt to save the rest of them: indeed, reading slightly between the lines, it is completely obvious that Jesus intended him to do so. Despite this fact, the guilt of what he'd done caused him to hang himself. In '73, Judas was -a good man-. He was a character that you could love, sympathize with, understand, and pity. In his final song, he descends (dressed as an angel) from heaven.In 2000, Judas is a leather-jacket wearing jerk that punches women, punches Jesus, licks Mary in the face for no apparent reason but to make her unhappy, and is really just an all- around creep. This makes it all the more strange when he suddenly becomes the conflicted character, because the lines call for it: one almost gets the feeling that he's just pretending to be a principled person so that people won't hate him. You can almost see the look of glee on his face when he finds out that he can cause a stir over the ointment for Jesus' feet. When he wails about "being spattered with innocent blood," one gets the feeling more that he is concerned what history will think of him, than what has happened to Jesus. When he says "to think I admired you, well now I despise you," he MEANS it... and one wonders how far back the "admired" part refers to. Certainly before the show begins, because he seems to despise Jesus the entire play.Oh, by the way: in his final song in THIS rendition, he is dressed purely in red, amidst lights that resemble flames, surrounded by chorus-girls dressed in red, singing rudely in Jesus' face as he carries his cross. At one point, he stands on TOP of the cross, pinning Jesus to the ground as he sings spitefully at him.Gee, I wonder what THAT'S supposed to represent.Just this would have been enough for me to hate the movie: the defense of the actions of Judas Iscariot was one of the things I found the most powerful about JC: S.However, I'll briefly go over a few more things.1: Jesus Christ was, to put it politely, a sissy. A complete, total sissy. He does not portray a strong leader. He does not portray a holy figure. He is 100% unadulterated wuss. One might read this as a clever attempt to portray the emo subculture that has developed in these modern times, but I prefer to view it as overblown and ridiculous. 2: The Pharisees, much like what was done with Judas, are portrayed not just as bad men, but evil men.3: Pilate was written to be a fair and just man that ended up sentencing Jesus to his fate mostly because (a) he understood that Jesus was planning on becoming a martyr, and (b) he was afraid of the mob. Pilate was portrayed in this version as being a bad man... which (similar to various scenes with Judas) made it very awkward when he defended Jesus before the mob.4: Simon's "You Get The Power And The Glory" scene: what. the. hell. Simon Zealotes is urging Jesus to "add a touch of hate at Rome" to his sermons to incite the mob against the Romans IMMEDIATELY AFTER a giant melee with Roman soldiers. While Simon is trying to convince Jesus to direct the mob to overthrow the Roman oppressors, the mob is already toting machine guns, fresh back at the sermon after kicking some Roman backside. It just makes no SENSE.I literally could go on for hours and hours about every little thing I hated about this movie. There was not a single voice stronger than the character's counterpart in '73. The acting, far from being "superior" to that in '73, is overblown, unconvincing, and stupid. The characters have been slaughtered. The POINT of the musical has been slaughtered. One of the greatest things about JC: S is how well it portrays the various shades of gray in the characters and events, and JC: S 2000 is purely, wholly black and white.I cannot comprehend in my wildest dreams how so many people that claim to be long-time fans of this play/movie could POSSIBLY prefer this over the original.At all.Were there a 0 star option, I would choose it.
Xander Seavy (RiffRaffMcKinley)
As if the similar 1999 production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" wasn't nauseating enough, the Really Useless (I mean, Useful... ahem) Group adds insult to injury by ***mangling*** Webber and Rice's only solid collaboration, "Jesus Christ Superstar." Jesus isn't the one who gets crucified here. It's Ted Neeley. And Carl Anderson. And those of us who watched this hoping to see an interesting new take on it.It was certainly a new take, but one that spat on a phenomenal play *and* a phenomenal movie. (What's worse is that the video box says it's available to see for the first time ever... ouch.) What's bad about it? Let's even skip the dismal casting decisions (Judas is guiltier of being a hack than a traitor here) and focus on what the strangers in a great land make of this play. Jerome Pradon whines his songs, which are many, my poor moviegoer. Frederick B. Owens needs to clear his throat. Somebody *please* get Caiaphas a cough drop! "Then We Are Decided," a vital song, is missing, and Jesus (Glenn Carter) bears an eerie and uncalled-for resemblance to "Joseph"'s Donny Osmond.Two cast members are pretty good-- Renee Castle, who is almost a match for Yvonne Elliman, and Tony Vincent, who beats Larry Marshall as Simon by actually having the talent to back up his enthusiasm. Unfortunately, they, like the promising Rik Mayall (poor Rest Home Ricky!), are nothing in the presence of nightmares like Carter and Pradon.One more thing. By casting a talentless Pilate, they've ruined one of my favorite scenes from cinema history ("Trial Before Pilate" in the 1973 movie). This overdone and infuriating redo gets 3 out of 10, and the only reason it gets those extra 2 stars is for two reasons: the squandered potential of both the show and Castle, Vincent, and even Mayall. Avoid like leprosy.
bad_wolf-3
Nearly thirty years after the original movie and over thirty years since the release of the play, an updated version seemed to make sense. Nevertheless, one should only do a remake if one is certain that one can improve on the original. This, I'm sorry to say, is not the case with this version of Jesus Christ Superstar.All of the characters, with the exception of Renee Castle (playing Mary Magdelene) appear to be very aware of the fact that they are playing roles that have become iconic. The entire production appears stagy and the songs have been reworked so that they sound pompous. It's clear that the direction was attempting to capture the sense of watching a live play, while using television direction techniques to make certain that the audience focuses on what the director thinks is important. That much of the production is clever. The characters, however, never break out of two-dimensions. They possess the bland detachment that one would expect from a cardboard box. One the rare occasion that the characters do demonstrate some honest to goodness pathos, it usually manifests in an irritating manner. Jesus comes off as whiny and slightly self-absorbed. Judas' motives are never clear–is he just trying to perform an elaborate "I told you so"? Does he really love or hate Jesus? I think it's clear that the director is trying to say that Judas is ambiguous and controlled by external forces, but at the end of the day makes a clear-cut decision to betray Jesus. Okay, I'll buy that. Just direct that actor so that is made explicitly clear. Peter is wooden and statuesque. Herod is pathetic. The priest are creepy. Which brings up another point: what is with all the leather. It appears that somebody in charge of this production has some kind of S&M fetish.Interspersed amidst all this disappointment are a few good moments. Whenever Renee Castle make up the bulk of those moments. The disciples forgiving Judas and hugging him after he stirred up trouble with his "Mystifying" song and angering Jesus where he berates all the disciples is another good moment. The Simon Zelotes number beginning with a riot was also well done; unfortunately is quickly devolved and became static.Overall, the strength of this production is to make one appreciate the 1973 movie all the more.
