Saturday March 27, 2004 The Guardian ... he trademark mayhem that made Braveheart and The Patriot so appealing to fans of disembowellings, impalings, beheadings and general depravity... ...a film so festive in its lurid, graphic, semi-pornographic, homoerotic violence that not even the most bloodthirsty film-goer could complain... ... an orgy of almost uninterrupted violence... ... anti-semitism as spectacular as Gibson's does not deserve to be treated with anything but contempt... ...Technically speaking, the film is well filmed but monotonous. The violence is so nauseating and repetitive that it is actually a relief when Christ is finally nailed to the cross...

Gibson's bizarre God:
From an underreported profile of Mel Gibson in The New Yorker (Sept. 15, 2003), discussing his then-upcoming film, "The Passion of the Christ": "There is no salvation for those outside the Church. Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. (But) she's Episcopalian. (S)he believes in God, she knows Jesus. (A)nd it's just not fair if she doesn't make it (to heaven); she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair (that she will not be saved). I go with it." [The New Yorker, 9-15-03] (quoted in Weird News)

[Good review of the movie as filmmaking] by A. O. Scott NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE Friday, Mar 26, 20040 There is a prophetic episode of The Simpsons in which the celebrity guest star Mel Gibson, directing and starring in a remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, enlists the help of Homer Simpson, who represents the public taste (or lack of it).... disheartening to see a film made with evident and abundant religious conviction that is at the same time so utterly lacking in grace... exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore... slithery, effeminate Satan... demon children with pointy teeth and milky eyes... [sure, you remember those from Scripture, right?] ...horror-movie suspense to slasher-film dread.... ...never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for...Gibson's most serious artistic failure.... ...forgiveness...seems beyond Gibson's imaginative capacities.

By ERIC HANSON Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle RICHMOND -- Detectives say the death of a 19-year-old woman originally ruled a suicide has turned into a murder case after a repentant man who'd watched The Passion of the Christ confessed to killing her because she was carrying his child.

Demonizing critics of 'Passion' By Cathy Young, 3/15/2004 MEL GIBSON had every right to make his film, "The Passion of the Christ." People who like the movie have every right to defend it. People also have every right to criticize it -- and, of course, Gibson's fans are free to criticize the critics. It's all part of free speech. But right now, the criticism directed at the movie is being distorted and demonized, and this rhetoric is fomenting far more division than the movie itself possibly could. So the subject of "The Passion" has to be addressed again, in order to set the record straight.

To add to the hubbub surrounding Gibson's movie is the mystery of the Vatican's stance. After an advance screening was provided for the Pope, rumor had it that the spiritual leader made a remark to the effect of "it is as it was." However, Vatican officials later denied such an endorsement. No matter what he said, the most interesting part of this is that Papal duties now include film reviews. Look out, Ebert and Roeper.

Interview with Mel Gibson’s dad teaches strange ‘lessons’ on life By Steve Feuerstein ... I learned that there actually were no concentration camps during the Holocaust, only work camps. I learned that the Holocaust was a fiction, a fabricated business tool used strategically to siphon hard-earned money from the coffers of innocent governments worldwide. I learned that there are too many survivors left in the world for there ever to have been a Holocaust....

Indianapolis Star Culture Watch: Ted Mandell This celluloid experience was far too real for his taste March 13, 2004 This wasn't suffering. It was a pay-per-view professional wrestling match taken way, way over the top. A mutilation in overblown close-ups and Dolby THX surround sound. To defend such an onslaught with historical documentation of Roman brutality dismisses the entire process of filmmaking. As if there were no other artistic way to portray that violence. ... It was a disgusting display of violent excess that I worry will have damaging effects on many young people for years to come.

No matter how hard it tries to ally its rapacious desire to make huge amounts of money with the loftier concerns of saving souls, it is constantly giving itself away. Gibson's horrible film, by doing its very best to overlook entirely the spirituality at the heart of the Christian story and focusing in gruesome detail on its carnality... by Peter Aspden Published: March 5 2004 17:57 | Last Updated: March 5 2004 17:57

Mel Gibson's 'Passion' makes for an entertaining, gory action film, but that's it ... this is the most a-religious Christ movie ever. By JAMES DIGIOVANNA MARCH 4, 2004 Tucson Weekly

03/02/2004 NEW BRITAIN -- A local woman with psychological problems purposely drove her car into the water at A.W. Stanley Quarter Park in an attempt to re-enact a scene from the blockbuster film, "The Passion of the Christ," police said. by LISETTE VELASQUEZ , Staff Writer

The Gospel according to Hollywood by Sarah Bryan Miller Of the Post-Dispatch 02/28/2004 Every age, it is said, reinvents Jesus in its own image, from the stern judge of medieval times to the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" of the mid-18th century, from the proletarian revolutionary of the mid-20th century to the eminently reasonable chap promoted today by the scholars of the Jesus Seminar
...
The film and Gibson have been taken up enthusiastically by evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, which is interesting in view of Gibson's stated view: They're not going to heaven. "There is no salvation for those outside the (Roman Catholic) Church," he told an interviewer for The New Yorker, adding that his own wife wouldn't be saved because she's an Episcopalian. "(T)hat is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it."