Kevin Reynolds once helmed the then-most expensive movie of all time: Waterworld. With an initial budget of $100 million, Waterworld‘s budget skyrocketed to $175 million due to a hurricane that collapsed the set mid production. Following a series of mixed movies, including the flops 187 and Tristan and Isolde, Kevin Reynolds finds himself here, in low-budget Christian movie hell.
Picking up where The Passion of the Christ left off, Risen tells the story of Jesus’ life after resurrection. Well, kind of. Risen doesn’t actually follow Jesus. Instead, it follows Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), a fictional Roman soldier who has to suppress Jesus’ hippy cult in time for a visitation by some Caesar or another. And, of course, the nasty Jews from The Passion also want to make sure that Jesus is dead. Like dead dead. When Jesus resurrects and goes missing, of course Clavius has to investigate and chase after the man.
Even though this is a Roman epic, Risen has a budget only slightly higher than a porn movie. During an early siege, Reynolds only has 20 extras to play out both sides of the battle. At one point, he hides a bunch of soldiers in a shield structure to create the illusion he has more people than he did, but the final result feels closer to …And God Spoke than Spartacus. In another effort to save even more budget, Reynolds cuts chase sequences down to their barest essentials, with each “chase” lasting about 5-30 seconds before the target is caught. Instead of having real chase sequences, Clavius spends long stretches of the film conducting forced bible study sessions with various followers in his office so they can spread the word of the lord without going over budget.
The problem isn’t that Cliff Curtis’ Yeshua is a long wavy haired hippy almost completely bereft of charisma. The problem isn’t that Clavius’ transformation from Roman tribune to traveling Christian is neither justified nor original. The problem isn’t even that Risen is preachy, expecting the audiences to be enamored with Jesus simply because they know who he represents.
The problem with Risen is mainly about neutered expectations. It sells itself as an action-filled manhunt, but spends most of its time in one office interviewing a cross section of non-Jesus biblical characters. When Reynolds finally does have an action sequence, budget limitations chop it off. When we finally meet Jesus, he does little more than smile beatifically. Most Biblical information is delivered second-hand. Risen steadfastly refuses to deliver either entertainment, education, or salvation. Instead of spending a couple of hours at the park, Risen is a trip to the veterinarian.