‘The Young Messiah’ – the Movie

The movie, ‘The Young Messiah’ opened March 11, 2016 in most theaters.  The movie plot is about Jesus of Nazareth as a young boy and as the trailers depict, it opens our imaginations about what the young Jesus might have been like.  At the age of 7, Jesus is living in Alexandria, Egypt with his parents, Joseph and Mary, who fled Nazareth when the government edict was issued by King Herod, to slaughter all children under the age of 2. When they finally hear that Herod has died, the young couple set out with their 7 year old son to return to Nazareth.

The novel ‘Christ the Lord – Out of Egypt,’ was written by Ann Rice, who is not a newcomer to the writing industry.  She has published novels such as ‘The Vampire Chronicles,’ ‘Blood Canticle,’ and many others which can be found at http://annerice.com. She also made a splash several years ago in 2010 when she announced that she was quitting Christianity (read my article :http://www.examiner.com/article/quitting-christianity-the-ann-rice-way.)

The screenplay was written by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh.  Some of the major characters in the movie are:

Jesus – Adam Greaves-Neal

Mary – Sara Lazzaro

Joseph – Vincent Walsh

Herod – Jonathan Bailey

Cleopas – Christian McKay

James – Finn Ireland

the demon – Rory Keenan

The movie uses imagery garnered from stories from legends that cropped up about the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ; namely, bringing a bird back to life, etc. and that he was already engaged in performing miracles when he was still a boy.   Whether these things really happened or not, we will not know for sure until He returns as King of King and Lord of Lords, at which time, we can ask Him if these things really happened.  The movie definitely has a Roman Catholic background, for instance Ann Rice writes about James, the half brother of Jesus, but states that James was adopted.  This being done in order to preserve the eternal virginity of Jesus’ mother, Mary.  Mary and Joseph went on after Jesus’ birth to have four more sons: James, Joseph, Judas and Simon, and at least two daughters.

However, the movie was well done and well directed despite those issues and this writer definitely recommends going to see this movie.  This is not like some of the other Hollywood movies that have recently come to the big screen that are simply unbelievable and quite clearly written by people who have no true knowledge about the Holy Scriptures.

This movie does have some violence but you really never see it graphically displayed.  There are some blood spatters when the slaying of the infants was ordered by Herod the Great in an attempt to kill the Messiah when he was still a very young child, after the Magi had inquired about where they could find the new-born King. This is why Herod ordered that males under the age of 2 were to be put to death.  The violence that is depicted is not the main point of the movie and is therefore nominal in nature, since this was not the focus.  It is a movie well worth the price and very enjoyable to see an attempt to open up a window on the life of Christ as a boy, even if it is all from the imagination of the author.