Ebert on The Passion

From The Sun Times:

If it does nothing else, Gibson’s film will break the tradition of turning Jesus and his disciples into neat, clean, well-barbered middle-class businessmen. They were poor men in a poor land… I myself am no longer religious in the sense that a long-ago altar boy thought he should be, but I can respond to the power of belief whether I agree or not, and when I find it in a film, I must respect it.

Ebert also calls the film the most violent he’s ever seen. A summary of reviews, along with links, can be found at Metacritic (which called it The Passion of Mel Gibson on its homepage). It’s fair to say that the reviews are polarized.