Paul, Apostle of Christ

It’s an impressively staged, well-acted, thoughtful and faithful telling of the last days of the Apostle Paul — and how Luke risked his life again and again to visit his great mentor in prison and make a written record of Paul’s life experiences and teachings.

There is no triumph or easy uplift here, only an urgent emphasis on Christ’s message of sacrificial love and a principled rebuke to anyone who would cheapen the gospel with politics — a conclusion that has lost none of its sting or relevance 2,000 years later.

There’s little in Paul, Apostle of Christ that’s not predictable, but the film engages honestly enough with its ideas that at times it feels like a small…well, let’s not use the word miracle in this case. It doesn’t shy away from complexity, and for that we can all be grateful — believers and heathens alike.

Countering the CG bombast and apocalyptic doom and gloom of the modern blockbuster with a soft-spoken message of faith and love, Paul, Apostle of Christ struggles to find a compelling entry point to a critical period in the early Christian church.

As movies expressly courting the faith-based audience go, Paul, Apostle Of Christ acquits itself reasonably well from moment to moment, avoiding the howlers that plague such Pure Flix titles as "Samson" and "God’s Not Dead."

Hyatt isn’t very good at getting across the urgency of the story, and for all the suggestions of torture (“Another 20 lashes!”) and scenes of prisoners being burned, the picture lacks drama or the tension that an account — based on the New Testament’s “Acts” and Christian tradition — might have had.

A few minutes of thriller-like tension early on gives way to a lot of tediously scripted scenes of whisper-acting that rarely breathe life and humanity into what should be a potent turning point story in a religion's history.

The only reason this movie will get a low score is because of religious bigotry. They'll trash this film, while raving about empty and soulless blockbuster movies. They'll look past all the flaws of "The Last Jedi" or some other tragically awful story, and eviscerate any faith based or morally centered film.

Usually I tend to score above the Userscore in a religious movie but although the characters played their roles well the story was lacking possible scene changes for my liking. As you can see my 10 rating went to Risen which was by far the best biblical movie of modern times

Has some powerful moments and some good acting but isn't very cinematic and dawdles a bit too much.

Beaten bodies, bloody hands, and corpses burning in the streets. This is a lot darker and more grim in tone than anything else from Affirm Films. The movie draws a parallel between the events of Rome during the reign of Nero and the things that are happening today. The message is to stay strong in your faith when things are spiraling out of control because of those in power. It does so in the form of a character study of Paul during his final days. As interesting and potentially relevant as this idea could have been, the potential is squandered by how unexciting the material ends up being. The acting is generally pretty good. I just had no reason to care about these characters. Nothing really happens but a bunch of dull conversations in some great looking (for the budget) locations. It's depictions of persecution offer the occasional glimpses of life through shock value. It never pushes the envelope too far though. Most of the more violent displays of torture take place off-screen. As an analysis of today's current political and social climate that offers an alternative way of combating a system you don't agree with rather than rioting in the streets or acting like a moron on social media, it's somewhat successful. As a source of entertainment however, it fails rather miserably. I applaud the continued effort of trying to make faith-based films subvert expectations by exploring new directions, but this was boring.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]