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Risen | 2016 | PG-13 | - 2.5.1

A Roman tribune (Joseph Fiennes) in Judea is disturbed when tasked with solving the disappearance of Yeshua's (Cliff Curtis) body from its tomb. Accompanied by his aide (Tom Felton) he must find a corpse and quell an uprising based on rumors of a risen Jewish Messiah. What he sees in his 40-day assignment makes him question his beliefs in the Roman gods. Also with Peter Firth, Stewart Scudamore, Maria Botto and Misha Boyko. Directed by Kevin Reynolds. [1:47]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man in a bath house appears nude from waist to head in a back view and in a large pool of water (we see his bare shoulders and chest); later the camera moves to an aerial view (we see his legs as he sits while wearing a loin-cloth), another man is shown sitting in the pool (we see his chest and abdomen). Three men on crosses in one scene and two men on crosses in another scene wear only loin-cloths (we see their chest and abdomen).
 Several shirtless men stand in a structure when an officer walks in and asks, "Who knows Mary Magdalene?" and nearly all of the men raise their hands (implying prostitution).

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A crowd shouts and stirs up dust clouds around three wooden crosses on which men hang with heavy nails already driven into their wrists and feet (we see blood streaming down the men's arms, legs, and feet, onto their faces and their beards); a soldier uses what appears to be a metal bar to break the legs of two men hanging on crosses (we hear thuds and hear the men shout in pain) and when women in the crowd screech an officer tells the soldier not to break the legs of the third man so the soldier presses a spear against the flesh of the man, depressing the skin at his stomach area; the camera cuts to a back view of the lower half of the cross and we see the soldier jump back as some water spurts toward him and a close-up of the third man on the cross shows a crown of thorns on his bleeding head (he gasps and dies, eyes open, blood staining his arm, chest, abdomen and legs).
 Fighting between Roman soldiers and Judeans involves several weapons: swords and shields, spears, bows and arrows, slings and rocks, and larger rocks and clubs. A man is stabbed in the stomach by a spear (we see no blood and he falls toward the camera and off-screen). A man is stabbed in the stomach with two spears, grunts and falls forward as the camera cuts away. A man stabs another man below the frame and the camera pans out to show the man lying still with some blood on his chest. Men on a hillside throw rocks from slings, knocking several other men unconscious or presumably killing them; one man falls, his face bloody, and crawls away. Romans capture an opposition leader and make him kneel before a Roman officer who stabs downward toward a point off-screen and we hear a thud; the camera cuts back and we see the kneeling man prone, with some blood across his head and chest.
 Romans cover themselves with shields to form a phalanx, climb up a hill, and a large rock thrown on top of them has no effect. Soldiers march to their city, carrying a man in a large cloth like a sling; the man is either unconscious or dead.
 A man on a cross gasps for a long time and dies before the soldier pushes three crosses over toward the camera and they fall with a loud crashing noise; the soldier uses heavy iron tongs to free the hands and feet of two men and soldiers drag the dead away across the dirt. Near a campfire, an older man approaches a tribune, who whips around with a sword and cuts a diagonal wound on the older man's lower leg (we see a little blood) and he yelps in pain, shouts in anger, and pours water he had brought onto the ground while saying, "That's a scar, I hope you know."
 A man opens a sheet on a wagon and we see a dead man's face with over 30 stitches in the temple, cheek and chin before the first man wraps the sheet up and guides the wagon to a place where six flaming funeral biers stand and the camera cuts to the wrapped body on a bier as the first man uses a torch to set fire to it and the scene ends. Inside a cave tomb we see a body wrapped completely in cloth wrapping as men roll a heavy stone in front of the entrance and seal it with ropes and sealing wax in six places and two complaining guards are commanded to stand watch as a soldier pushes a priest out of the way and the priest loses his balance and sits down hard on a stone wall. A soldier stumbles over a human skull. A man claims the body of man and comforts the man's crying mother.
 A Roman ruler sends a tribune to find the corpse of a dead man that people say has risen from the dead and the tribune reluctantly investigates the disappearance of the man's corpse, searching through outdoor charnel houses where we see piles of dead bodies surrounded by loudly buzzing flies and piles of skeletons. Soldiers place bodies in multiple lines with heads and bodies covered to below the knees as large flies buzz loudly around them while children and young men stand nearby, jeering loudly (we see bruises and diagonal cuts across the shins of most of the bodies, and hear that their legs were broken) and the tribune and aides cover their noses and mouth with cloths, coughing at the smell. A tribune tells his soldiers to dig up all the bodies of those who died in the past week in Judea and one body is taken to a Roman ruler, who says, "In a few years, that's us"; a man says the face is unrecognizable because of decay ( we see a blackened indistinct, clothed body from a distance) and the ruler instructs the tribune to announce publicly that the body is the supposedly risen dead man that was crucified (we do not see the announcement). A man places a crown of thorns on another man's desk.
 At the compound of a Roman ruler an earthquake breaks and crumbles some of the outside protective walls and horses whiney loudly as men run to keep from being struck by falling stones from the walls. We see a dark sky in a dream and a man with a crown of thorns hangs on a cross that stands in a deep flood of churning black waters (his face and body show streaks of blood) as a man startles awake from the dream and the scene ends.
 A man with a sword corners another man among some cliffs and presses the sword to the man's chest; the second man takes the sword and places it firmly against the first man's throat, telling him to leave, then giving him back the sword as he says, "No one dies today. No one." Soldiers chase a woman until she jumps from a low window and a tribune catches her; he questions her in his office about a man said to be risen from the dead and she says that he is everywhere when an aide asks if he should have her stoned (the tribune declines) and the aide pulls her out of her chair by one arm and off-screen. Soldiers break into a house by torchlight and find it empty. A dust-covered man with cuts on his lips stumbles through the wilderness toward the camera, and later, walks away into the wilderness again.
 A tribune questions people about the disappearance of a body: An elderly woman with milky eyes says that she heard the dead man's voice a few days after his death and an aide leads her out of the office; a man says that he met the dead man alive on a road as another man kneels and says to strike him and crucify him and the tribune says the man really does not want his bones to be crunched and broken and to breathe as if through a wet cloth, and then throws a large nail to the floor and the man picks it up trembling as the tribune pinches one of the man's arms, and kicks the back of his legs, making him grunt in pain.
 A soldier tells an officer that he and another guard at a tomb went to sleep, when they were awakened by a loud noise they saw ropes on the stone covering burst into flames and break; they saw a being that was not human, heard a loud voice all around them and saw the corpse from inside the tomb walk out of it in a bright ball of light before one of the men says they had not slept for two days and perhaps some opium was in the wine he drank on duty (please see the Substance Use category for more details), causing visions.
 A tribune pushes a man to the ground outside a building (without injury) before he and a troop of soldiers search a street of houses; the tribune opens a door with his sword, walks in, is startled by what he sees and looking stunned, he backs out the door, meets his aide, argues briefly and re-enters the house where he stares and drops his sword. Men see a few women beating a leper with wooden staves and the leper is bent over and has bulbous growths all over his face and hands (we later see the leper healed); a man approaches, gives the leper a piece of fish, hugs him and the man turns back to the camera (we see the leper's healed face and hands). Several men watch another man walk away as the sun becomes a nova that flashes a bright light and a strong wind streams past them, blowing their hair and robes back.
 A Roman ruler shouts that he wants two guards lashed (with whips) to death (this does not occur). A Roman ruler says about a dead man, "It was as if he wanted to be sacrificed." A Roman ruler says about a dead man, "I had to crucify him." A Roman ruler hears that a dead man is alive again and he says, "If it's true, bring him to me. I'll kill him again." A man says that he has seen cannibalism and has seen a serpent swallow a man. A man goes inside a building to speak with his superior, who tells him, "You smell of meat" and the superior tells the man to burn a prisoner in public but a priest objects and crucifixion is decided. A soldier reports that while guarding a tomb at night, he and his partner were attacked (no injuries are evident) and the body stolen. A Roman officer states that the blood-stained image on a shroud found in an empty tomb is just sweat and herbs that include myrrh and aloe. A man writes in a note that he has quit the army and is following another man. People gasp as a man seems to disappear and a woman says they must go to Galilee while an elderly man mutters in a corner. Soldiers search for disciples of a man and a man with the disciples says that the soldiers are out for blood. A man sits on a hill beside another man and says that he helped to kill a man previously, and another man responds by saying that he knows that the first man has wanted to retire from his work with peace and a day without death.
 A man in close-up gags and covers his mouth with his fist, but does not vomit. A man spits wine onto the ground and we see the wine as it is spat. A man spits into his palm (we see the spittle), and wipes a healing wound on his lower leg with it. A man blows air with his mouth in a tomb and may be spitting, but we see no spittle. A man throws a piece of bread to the tribune and snorts. A large flock of swarming birds follows a man wherever he walks.

LANGUAGE 1 - 1 mild obscenity, name-calling (holy fool, hot head, mad, obsessed, witch, evil, faggoted [implies useless, rather than gay], dangerously clever, cursed Yeshua, crazy poor dead Jew, pack of raving Jews), exclamations (be quiet), 12 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh God, Lord, Yeshua, Amen, The Lord's Prayer, a prayer to a Roman statue, God does not permit cremation, God Bless And Keep You, They will believe the gods).

SUBSTANCE USE - A man asks if a vision could have been caused by opium in his wine and another man agrees. Two men drink goblets of wine in a bath house, a man drinks a goblet of wine at his home, a man drinks a cup of wine in his office, men drink from clay cups and clay jugs of wine and one man throws a cup of wine against a wall in a public house, a soldier drinks from a wineskin at night while on duty, a man finds a wineskin and tastes the wine before spitting it out onto the ground (we see the wine spat out), two men drink from a cup of wine at a dinner table, and men drink wine and water from animal skin containers.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Christianity, Judaism, Roman Religions, prayer, miracles, oppression of the Jews, sacrifice, crucifixion, death, faith, peace, forgiveness, enlightenment, loyalty, trust, friendship, agape love, redemption, hope.

MESSAGE - Christ's crucifixion and the events of the following 40 days changed the lives of many who were under Roman rule.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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