Now that I've finally seen The Passion, and can speak as one who has seen it, there are a number of things which have endlessly annoyed me about many of the reviews I've read, things I'd like to get off my chest.

Venting commences...

First, I'm tired of the numerous reviewers who felt Gibson made the wrong movie. It should have been about what they wanted, they complain.

Some, for example, complained it didn't give enough background material. Hint: The title is The Passion of the Christ. If you want to see a movie with lots of background material, go see The Gospel of John, not a movie about Jesus' last twelve hours. Complaining that The Passion lacked background is a bit like complaining that McDonalds can't seem to deliver a good pizza.

And some of the complaints in this vein are just wrong or misleading: Given what I'd read in the reviews, I was shocked at how much background material there actually was. Yes, I suspect if you just wandered out of the jungle, you might not follow what was going on. But this movie clearly wasn't made for those eight people. (And they'd probably be curious enough to learn more, anyway.)

Second, kind of along this line, I was deeply annoyed by reviewers who wanted to see a different kind of Jesus than Mel presented. Or felt their idea regarding the gospels were not mirrored in Gibson's movie.

For example, Leah Rozen quips in People: "In a movie about compassion, Gibson shows litte for his audience." Really? Where did we get the idea that a movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus's life should focus on a visible kind of "compassion"?

Like many Christians, Gibson undoubtedly sees the story of Jesus's death as being about God's mercy -- that is, the act Jesus undertook to spare us the wrath of God for our sin. But it's impossible to portray mercy without also giving an understanding of some retribution from which one has been mercifully spared.

Yet Leah knows what the movie is about: It is, or should have been, she implies, about compassion, about alleviating suffering, not about suffering itself.

Other reviewers insisted the gospels were all about "love", and thus were angry this wasn't a "loving" story. And, of course, a loving story wouldn't include man's own depravity, or any kind of punishment! they imply. Somehow, it escapes them that Jesus final response to all of this is: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I guess we can only have love in the absence of evil, eh?

And then we had the usual "tolerance" crowd who somehow seemed convinced that Jesus and the gospels all about a kind of love which simply overlooks sin. I always wonder if these folks have actually taken any time to read the material about which they expound.

Next we have reviewers who I call "instant Christians". These are critics, who, after having admitted elsewhere to not buying general premise, proceed to give a long theological lecture about where Mel Gibson fails to represent Christian ideals. Please, let the self-described Christians sort out what is or isn't "Christian" about the movie.

Then we had the "instant prudes" -- critics who had previously spoken as though Kill Bill was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and who fawned over every last drop of faux-blood Tarantino spatters, and who suddenly started screaming about the "pornographic violence" in The Passion.

Similarly, we also had the "instant historians". Many of these people weren't exactly sure what happened back there in Jerusalem all those years ago, but the were (somehow) also equally, if not more sure that this wasn't it. I actually saw one reviewer cite The Da Vinci Code as a historical document, and then had the guts to take Gibson to task on historical accuracy!

Last, and certainly not least, we had those who echoed the cry of anti-semitism. These were often also "instant historians" who searched what they thought were Mel Gibson's interpolations for signs of his hatred towards Jews. Hilariously, these often chose elements which were actually from the bible, not Gibson's creativity, to bolster their case!

For example, one review I read from the Boston Globe complained about the flogging, and then asks "to what purpose" Gibson has done this? Of course, to show, in the next scene, a Jewish crowd yelling "Crucify him!" and thus to inspire anti-semitism.

Never mind that that's the exact sequence given in John 18.

Rather than effectively charging Gibson with racism, such critics only succeed in demonstrating their ignorance regarding the difference between the biblical account and Gibson's movie. Such ignorance would be understandable if not simulataneous with judgemental claims of psychological and biblical/historical expertise.

(From what I could see, Gibon's interpolations promoted Catholicism far more than antisemitism.)

There were also a number of reasonable reviews where people offered their reaction without bluster, pseudo-moralistic vitriol, or pretense to undemonstrated expertise. Sadly, these were about half or less of the reviews I read.

In short, I found Gibson's film a fascinating litmus test of the heart. Many of the reviews seemed to say a lot more about the reviewers than the film itself. And what I learned about human nature -- the dishonesty, the hypocrisy, the moralizing judgementalism, the ignorance, and the hating -- was depressing.

Of course, that's what the film says too.