Jesus Loves Me (2012)

Better Late Then Never

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

After prolific actor Florian David Fitz was the big winner at the German Film Awards for the pretty good "Vincent will Meer", it seemed that writing and starring was still not the end of the line for him. In "Jesus Loves Me", he does not only have the two previously mentioned tasks, but also directed a film for the first time. Apart from that, he plays Jesus Christ. The female main character is played by Jessica Schwarz, who is as likable as talented in my opinion. Most of the supporting cast is played by experienced German actors with a respectably body of work.Sadly this movie rarely succeeds. Most of it was even ridiculous in a bad way. None of the apocalyptic references felt edge-of-the-seat stuff and the confused woman screaming was downright embarrassing. So were the thought that we could hear in the head of Schwarz' character (for example about terrorists) when she meets Jesus for the first time. The cat in the glass with the Devil next to her weren't much better. Maybe the worst part was the inclusion of the song "Nur noch kurz die Welt retten". It became pretty cringeworthy at that point. In the end Schwarz' character meets God himself, which is an okay scene, but not truly great either, just not as bad as most of the rest of the film. It's a bit of a shame as Schwarz constantly selects good roles, but here it did not work out. I hope she will recover because I really do not want to see her waste her talent in cheesy romance novel adaptation on television anytime soon. Anyway, "Jesus Loves Me" is not a good film and therefore I cannot recommend it. Tons of better German movies out there.

Florian David Fitz is capable of expressing heavy feelings so I was curious about how he would play Jesus. Well, he played him realistically! Good willed, having deep thoughts, suffering, plus he looked amazing. An actor should have emotional depth to pull off Jesus and Fitz has it.The script, on the other hand, was a roller-coaster for me. There were scenes that made me seriously think and feel but they were scattered around the movie. I could have been wowed by a story like this if Fitz handled the script more intensely, putting more emphasis on the philosophical side and on the main characters (He's the screenwriter/director himself). He shined as Jesus but we could only see bits of it.I laughed a couple of times, like at the disappearance of Satan, which is a good sign because it's hard to make me laugh...Overall, it's a good-enough directing debut for the main actor and worth giving a chance.

Why would Jesus love one person? There is a satisfying answer to that in the movie (if it isn't already answered in the plot description). The guy playing Jesus (literally) has his feet firmly placed into the romantic genre in Germany. A known actor, but he still can pull it off, thanks to a very decent script.The jokes sometimes work (Devil is smelling bad, though that joke only works once not as often as it is played out in the movie or the one about the appearance of God), but some are complete miss. There is cursing (which some might find offensive in a movie like this), but everything is kept as light as possible. Whatever your beliefs are, you might be able to enjoy this as a comedy. Not great, but OK

As an admirer of Florian David Fitz as an actor I was really looking forward to see his debut as a director, but sadly this movie left me disappointed.The story to me unfortunately totally lacks drive, during the whole film I was desperately waiting for something like an arc of suspense, but it just didn't happen. No real ups or downs, rather a constant flow of lukewarm happenings stringing together, I just couldn't relate to any of the characters nor to the storyline, it just didn't "get me".Something I want to mention positively were the well done, not overdone special effects and some beautiful and good placed photography of the wonderful showplaces.You don't have to be religious to understand the basic plot around Jesus and all the bible-related innuendos. The subject is handled respectfully and does not polarize. Florian David Fitz with no doubt successfully avoided to split the audience in believers or non-believers,but by trying to represent Jesus in a way that pleases everyone the character sadly also lacked charisma and passion. His try to represent Jesus as the gracious kind character ended up in appearing extremely sleepy, almost "stoned" or sedated. From his former performances in "Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit", "Die Vermessung der Welt" and specially in "Vincent will Meer" I remember Florian David Fitz as an incredible multifarious lively charismatic actor that never failed to impress and to entertain me, the more strange it appears to me that his first own movie seems to be the only movie so far he didn't dare to show 100% of his acting skills.. and I wonder why.Jessica Schwarz on the other hand often comes along TOO officious and hyper. The only highlight to me was Henry Hübchen in his role of archeangel Gabriel.At no point of the film I started to feel with characters or to hope for the characters, it sort of simply let me cold. So it wasn't much of a disappointment when the movie simply ended as fanciless as the whole plot was.The original idea of that story would have had potential, but what was made of it was too predictable and unfortunately got spoiled by feeding every clichè you can think of.For his next try to agitate as a director I wish Florian David Fitz more courage to leave the accustomed usual trivial style of German TV romances, because there are too many of them already and I'm absolutely sure he has the potential to make something more extraordinary.The German audience and his fans CAN indeed digest more substance than that, just do it!