Mary Magdalene Risen

Two movies for Easter.

Mary Magdalene

When home life becomes far too aggressive, Mary (Rooney Mara) makes the decision to follow a wise healer (Jesus, played by Joaquin Phoenix) to travel and teach across Judea until the end of his mortal days. Pretty good cinematography in this one and I do like their take on Judas too. If anything I'd complain they whisper too much. Obviously a movie for religious people though, and if you aren't one of those there's not much in it here for you. I suppose it's pretty challenging to make a movie about a tale people already know about (or on the flip side, don't care about). This was an OK attempt.

Risen

With the impending visit of the Emperor, Roman Tribune Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) is tasked with keeping the peace which includes finding the missing body of a recently crucified man claimed to be the Messiah  "Yeshua" which could act as the spark for rebellion. Props on making a different story to tell for the Easter season and while it still falls well into the religious film category they managed to get some fight scenes in there too. However, there are way too many quiet scenes which quite literally were putting us to sleep. For that problem alone Mary Magdalene is a better movie.