Jesus’ followers are hunted, leaderless and desperately searching for understanding, but when Jesus rises from death, they realize that hope didn’t die on the cross. It lives on in them.
While there have been many TV shows, mini-series, and movies about the life of Jesus, “Resurrection” chooses to focus instead on the events after his death on the cross, with a prologue that shows us the circumstances that led to his death. After giving his life on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea (Kevin Doyle), a disciple of Jesus, asks Pilate (Vincent Regan) if he can take Jesus’s body and place it in a tomb recently carved for his family, in order to give him a proper burial. Pilate has no objection to this and agrees, but at the insistence of the Sanhedrin, fearing that Jesus’s disciples might steal his body as he promised to rise from the dead after three days, Pilate sends several soldiers to the tomb and orders them to guard it at all costs for the next three days.
Scared for their lives, Peter and the remaining apostles stay in Jerusalem, locking themselves in rooms, away from the world. Of all the apostles, Peter suffers the most, teeming with immeasurable guilt and remorse at his betrayal of Jesus. Even after Jesus said he would deny Him three times, Peter was insistent he would never do such a thing, so when he was recognized by a servant girl who informed the crowd that he was one of Jesus’s followers, his first instinct was immediate fear and apprehension, leading to his rejection of the Son of God. With Jesus now gone, Peter is heartbroken and despondent but that quickly gives way to concern and disbelief when after three days, Mary Magdalene informs the apostles that Jesus’s body is no longer in the tomb.
Shortly thereafter, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene at his tomb, and after she makes her way back to the apostles and tells them what happened, he appears to them too, much to their initial skepticism, reminding them that he said he would rise from the dead after three days. Later, the apostles are having a meeting when the Holy Spirit descends on each one of them and gives them the power to speak in tongues, allowing them to spread the word of God and Jesus, thereby ushering in the Christian era. They immediately went out onto the streets of Jerusalem and proclaimed the good news of God and that very same day, they brought thousands of people into the new church.
“Resurrection” serves up a conventional narrative that has been realized to much better effect in other well-produced adaptations. It has the ambiance more fitting of a TV movie and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I would have much preferred it had more of a cinematic feel to it. As it is, “Resurrection” sets out to achieve its goal of telling us what happened after the death and eventual resurrection of Jesus and it does so competently. The acting, for the most part, is fine, while the sets and occasional use of CGI, help advance the story as needed. “Resurrection” won’t win any awards for originality, but that isn’t the point here, the producers want to put forward their own take on this chapter of the bible and they do so effectively. For a more in-depth and comprehensive look at the last few days of Jesus’s life, I would highly recommend Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” but in the meantime, “Resurrection” will suffice.
Now available on Blu-ray
