Strong and Moving!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I had seen this on television ~ ABC probably, but at a friend's house, at the time of release. We talked about that time a few years ago and I was saying remember that Dr Who episode ?..." I've never seen Dr Who." My pal replied and this set of a chain reaction of thinking about it further and consulting IMDb. I'd got it wrong, but thematically right. I realised that I'd only seen episode one and had subsequently devoted myself to the new Dr Who along with great fondness for Christopher Eccleston in his role in 'Cracker' back in the 90s. Add to the mix, the Russell T Davies connection and the crossed wire was well sorted! I found the DVD version in my local library and decided to revisit the experience, solo. Ah ~ the Eureka moment, I'd never seen the ending.All the performances shine and the writing is fantastic. Lesley Sharp amazes and delights as the voice and face of reason ~ the woman who has to make the toughest decision and live with it. She is the one can see down the road ahead and has a handle on the concept of consequences. It is a post 9/11 piece as well, so that places it in great context also. So much international frenzy and fear that still sits in every airport to this day. The Second Coming ~ the title also a famous poem by Yeats ("And what rough beast, ... Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? "), stirs the pot something delicious. What do people really believe ? How do they react in a crisis ? What/Who matters most if you think there are only 5 days left ? The fact that it all takes place in Manchester, England, England, makes it all the more potent and powerful.

It was a two-part miniseries, the first half opened with a bang, and maybe even a bit of hope. The second half ended with a whimper and even ends basically with misery! It basically ended up taking us nowhere. Why introduce a 3rd Testament that would disprove the existence of God? The whole thing ends up being just a farce. I was really hoping that they were going to take this somewhere. The pacing is very slow, and sometimes the music seemed off cue. The music makes you feel disoriented. The message of the whole movie is meaningless! I wished that I had watched Hell's Kitchen instead! Gordon Ramsay would've added some substance to this rather bleak ending.

=== spoilers!!I actually did not like this movie. Besides being a miniseries and feeling very long, it presented the son of God like a stupid bloke from Manchester who barely knows what he is doing, unless a divine "download" comes. He performs a few miracles for no real reason, then he does what his girlfriend thought.I am not religious and actually the idea of a world without religion (however weird that sounds for humans) seems a very good idea. But if God did exist and did come on Earth, I would like him to stay. I mean, what the hell (pun intended), at least he can stay for a few laughs and a beer then go home and leave us alone. God dying (or ceasing to exist or whatever) makes no sense once you know he is there.I also did not like the choice of actors. Christopher Eccleston is a good actor and I enjoy his movies, but he had no "godly" charisma in this film. And the girlfriend... could have picked a decent looking girl. The TV feel also took the rest of the edge off.So, if you are in the mood for a Manchester based son of god TV movie with a nietzschean ending, watch this film. As a side note: "God is dead" is found in 126000 pages on google. "God lives" is in 143000. So I guess that settles it :))

I rented the dvd (appropriately enough) over the Easter weekend and it made for a very interesting diversion from the usual sappy, soppy, silly "resurrection" of religious movies we get bombarded with at this time of year. The acting was very good and the premise even better. Episode one was excellent and I wondered how the director was going to bring this to a resolution in episode two. Well, I loved the ending but I am, like other viewers, foxed as to how it came about. The peculiar logic of the film was compromised by a sudden revelation I'm not convinced the character would have(or could have) had. Nevertheless, I recommend this to anyone who has had their fill of the Mel Gibson/right wing/heaven- forbid-we-have-an-original-thought treatments of spiritual subjects.