I think that this film is one of Scorsese’s most ambitious and experimental films. If The Last Temptation of Christ was a silent film with no dialogue, I think that it could have worked in showing a fictional account of temptations other than those listed in the Bible, but because it is not, it falls desperately short of its imagery. The accents are a huge distraction. There was a visual dissonance between the main characters’ appearance, mostly white actors, and the majority of people in the film, Arab and black. The only time it worked was when David Bowie appears as Pilate! I know that everyone protested at the end of the film–when Jesus imagined being married with kids, but did they miss the majority of the movie? The philosophy of Jesus in this film is a bit all over the map: the heart or the axe. Forget inconsistent with the Bible, it didn’t even feel consistent within this story that this Jesus would be a wielder of axes one minute then suddenly cool with pacifism & being killed. If you apply a more textured reading, the axe could be a metaphor for cutting out sin, but I think that is being generous & isn’t consistent with the content of the movie—though it could have been the intent of the author (I haven’t read the book). In the end, it is disappointing & unfocused.