AmethystAve Mary, Mother of Jesus was interesting, but as a Christian I just couldn't stomach more than an hour. In the movie when Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, Joseph replied, "you are dead to me". That just sounded inappropriate. Soon after there was a scene with Jesus as a boy. Of course little is known about Jesus as a child, so I wasn't surprised when artistic liberties were taken for that period of Christ's life. During this time of the movie a boy began to bully the young character of Jesus. The larger boy said something such as "You think you are so much better than everyone else", and then punched 'Jesus' in the nose. His face was bloody. That too, was inappropriate. In the Bible it is written about Jesus, "He shall give His Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone". If God would protect Jesus even from tripping over a rock, then most certainly He would have protected Jesus from getting punched by some little punk. Jesus suffered as God ordained it so (scourging, crucifixion). I have a problem with films that try to portray Christ and just make a mess of doing so, always adding in something distasteful. Any movie that would attempt to punch the face of God... is definitely not worth watching.

beresfordjd This film is incredible in its awfulness!! I am watching it still as I type. Whatever possessed the actors to take part in it? I guess they never know how it will turn out until it is edited and, what the hell, it's work!! It is badly written, badly dubbed and the fictional scenes just never ring true.It is a sanitised version of Nazareth we see in the early scenes and it is hard to believe that he people would have gone around in pristine clothing the whole time!! There is no hint of their ethnicity and it is like watching a school production with studio production values. Rather clichéd scenes just make the viewer laugh and although I have only got as far as the manger scene I cannot wait to see what Christian Bale does with his part as Jesus. I will watch it until the end but I cannot see how it can improve from such a weak start.

Tin Man-5 "Mary, Mother of Jesus" is a TV-attempt that features actors so sincere and so powerfully moving that you almost wish that the movie would just get out of their way and let them act in the way they all know they can! Telling the life of Jesus (Christian Bale) through the eyes of Mary (played by Anakin Skywalker's mom in "Episode One," by the way), the film in itself is very fast-moving and very paper-thin. Unless the viewer is familiar with the biblical depiction of Christ, he or she will be unutterably lost in this account, since the scenes move so fast and it never leaves the watcher any time to really grasp what's going on. Jesus doesn't even begin his ministry until the last hour, and then, we barely get a look at his disciples and miracles before he is arrested and crucified. And his resurrection is so underplayed, it could have easily been straight from a bad episode of "Touched By An Angel." I don't know....As a Christian, I just feel thst my Savior deserves more than this.... The idea of the emphasis switching to Mary is nice, but couldn't they have stretched this out to a miniseries to make it a little more coherent?The film effectiveness, however, lies in the cast. Christian Bale is convincing as Christ, bravely presenting him as a Divine figure with love for everyone. He also presents a human side as well, emphasizing on his need to talk to God and his desire to be with his mother even though he knows he cannot. Bale has always been an underrated actor in my book, and his performance here is very nice, though rather underplayed, since he has little to work with. It would have been nicer to see more emphasis on Jesus in this....but nay, it isn't to be: This is a movie about Mary. Ah, Mary. Pernilla August is very nice as Mary as well, though a little innacurate. Due to the status of women back in the days of Christ, I doubt that she was such a daring revolutionary, and if she was, she wouldn't have strutted the fact around so much. I think she was just a normal, common girl who didn't seem worthy of God's selection....In this film, her assertiveness makes her the perfect, most likely choice. I would have rather seen played it the other way....It would have made a more interesting movie with her doubting herself, and then Jesus filling her, his own mother, with hope and he filled others with hope. But, once again, not enough time to establish this, and the lack of characterization bogs the film down....especially with an actress so promising for the part.Is it worth watching? For the performances, yes. However, as far as true emotion and power of the story goes, the viewer is better-off watching "Jesus of Nazareth."**1/2 out of ****

mermatt This TV-movie is well-intentioned but mechanical. I knew from the opening that there was a problem with the production when the opening narrative was printed on the screen and read at the same time with a voice that sounded like the station-break announcer.The film just goes through the motions and gives us every cliche of second-rate Biblical movies including Jesus as a fair-skinned Anglo-Saxon. Christian Bale does what he can with the material but is terribly mis-cast. His mother is presented as a politically-correct feminist who apparently is responsible for Jesus' teachings and parables which were, according to the plot, the bedtime stories she told Jesus when he was a child.The sets and costumes are good, but the performances are flat and perfunctory. What we get here is a shallowness reminiscent of school plays. The Gospels are condensed into a 2 hour TV movie that has the profundity of a Readers' Digest version of the Bible.