Das Jesus Video (2002) (TV)

Calificación de los usuarios:

5.3/10   

Director:

Sebastian Niemann

Escritores:

Andreas Eschbach (novel)
Martin Ritzenhoff (writer)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

5 diciembre 2002 (Alemania)

Género:

Acción | Suspenso | Misterio | Ciencia-Ficción | Fantasía

Frase comercial:

An adventure that started 2000 years ago...

Plot:

STEFFEN VOGT, aged around 25, is helping out at a German archeological excavation in Israel when he...

Plot Keywords:

Time Travel | Israel | Ancient Israel | Shirtless Male Bondage | Archeology

Premios:

1 win & 1 nomination

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Why didn't they use ANY of the novel's original ideas?

Reparto

Matthias Koeberlin	...	Steffen
Naike Rivelli	...	Sharon
Manou Lubowski	...	Yehoshua
Hans Diehl	...	Scafaro
Dietrich Hollinderbäumer	...	John Kaun
Heinrich Giskes	...	Professor Willfort
Robinson Reichel	...	Roland Jung
Klaus Grünberg	...	Man with broken nose
Pierre Semmler	...	Christopher
Frank Scharl	...	Ryan
Mario Holetzeck	...	Dan
Gode Benedix	...	Dr. Simmon (as Gode Bendix)
Torsten Jerabek	...	Agent 1
Andreas Cremer	...	Agent 2
Dounia Tazi	...	Ausgrabungshelferin

También conocida como:

Ancient Relic (USA) (video title)
The Hunt for the Hidden Relic (USA)
El enigma de Jerusalén (Spain) [es]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence.

Duración:

182 min | Netherlands:124 min

País:

Alemania

Idioma:

Alemán

Color:

Color

Relación de Aspecto:

1.78 : 1

Sonido:

Dolby Digital

Clasificación:

Australia:M | USA:R | Germany:12 | Netherlands:12

Locaciones de Filmación:

Casablanca, Morocco

Compañía:

Medienfonds GFP

Trivialidades:

One of the two helicopters on the chase near the end, the white and orange one, has a Spanish registration number: EC-FJA. Just some months after the release of the movie, this helicopter suffered an accident while performing fire-fighting tasks. Fortuntelly, all 7 on board escaped unharmed, but the main rotor caught fire and the whole aircraft was destroyed on this new fire.

Why didn't they use ANY of the novel's original ideas?

I almost always avoid to compare movies to the novels they're based upon. You can't film a 600 page book and stay true to the text. That film would be 10 hours long, have endless dialogue scenes and be terribly boring. So I do agree, a screenplay writer has to simplify the story. But `Jesus Video' goes way too far to be acceptable. The book offered an amazing story (time-traveller presumably filmed J.C. Superstar, surely envied by Cecil B De Mille, but where did he leave the camera for the world to see?), many new ideas and surprising turns. Andreas Eschbach, the author, had a very clever way of never letting you easily guess what will happen next. His characters think a lot about the problems of time-travelling and the origins of religious belief, a fascinating concept. The movie script abandoned all creative ideas and all logical thought that made the book so impressive, instead it replaced them by a stupid action story we have seen a thousand times before: hey, that guy stole something that rightfully belongs to us! Let's chase him, torture him, kill him! Thus, a breathtaking story full of suspense was turned into a violent, boring 3 hour movie. 3 hours should be plenty of time to develop a clever storyline! Why were the producers scared and preferred to waste the huge potential? For example, the professor (in the book) is in a difficult situation, standing between his employer and the hero (his student). In the end, he is the key figure to the solution. In the movie however, they somehow didn't know what to do with him, since they wanted to rewrite the ending anyway (with another big explosion if possible), so somebody just shoots the professor in the middle of the film without any convincing motive. Bang, bang, one character less to write lines for, story even more simple from now on. The movie's only virtue is: every five minutes, somebody fires a gun to keep you awake.

This is definitely not a candidate for the `worst film ever'. It just is so depressing that this particular novel offered something we rarely get to see: new ideas, no cliches! But the movie doesn't use ANY of these ideas and delivers a below average action movie (I voted 3/10) instead. Such a waste of potential is annoying.

In opposite to a few other reviewers here, I think the actors did okay (within the limited possibilities the script gave them). Naike Rivelli reminded me so much of her mother, screen legend Ornella Muti, in the early 1980s. I'm looking forward to see more movies with this talented young lady, but please not `Jesus Video 2 - Pontius Strikes Back"!