I saw it on Thursday night, but I didn't come away with the same feelings as most people did. While I felt sympathy for Mary and many of the other characters, I felt as a viewer very distanced from Jesus himself.
I know this is an adaptation of part of the New Testament and all, but while watching the movie I never got a sense of what Jesus was all about. It's like he had no personality. It was difficult to feel sympathy for him because of that, though I felt a great deal of sympathy for Mary, Magdalena, John, and some of the others.
P.S.: This movie certainly didn't seem anti-Semitic to me --almost all the good characters are Jewish, except for Claudia, Pontius Pilate's wife. There were people in the crowd who wanted Jesus dead, but there were also people in the crowd who wanted him to be saved. And, of course, Jesus himself, Mary, and all of the disciples were Jewish. If anything the film seemed "anti-Roman"...
