shakib_djs Last Days also benefits immeasurably from the cinematography by three-time Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki. His camera captures the desert with incredible clarity and sensitivity, from its deep skies and remote horizons to its sharp, clutching weeds and bushes. His ability to make such an inhospitable world beautiful echoes the movie's idea that even a circumscribed life is worthwhile.

Rick Leeson I have a fairly calm enough demeanor to sit down and enjoy a movie such as this particularly if I enjoy the subject matter. The first half of the movie was interesting watching McGregor develop the character but if you are watching a movie about Jesus, the savior of the world you expect a little more than an ineffective, indecisive individual in a quandary over typical human problems. Hello! Jesus was supposed to be one of the wisest men that ever lived, oh yea, even more than a man as you have heard and I don't think He just got wise between the desert and walking out. Family counseling should have been a breeze. And so you are telling me that he does not have more direction for this family than an occasional minor tid-bit of timid advice.Once that character realization sets in and the downbeat, even depresso soundtrack establishes itself the movie for me is setting on thin ice. I love to give movies a chance because i have seen many pull themselves out of some real nosedives but not here. The ending just drags the movie down into the ditch of what ever it was supposed to mean.So Jesus, the Son of God cannot pull a man up and save him from a fatal fall and then leaves a woman abandoned in the desert not long after her son abandons her meaning Jesus fully abandoned her when he walked away. Did He leave her for dead or did he heal her and then leave her abandoned and alone in the desert? As Jesus leaves the tent the devil blurts out "who do you think you are?", so apparently Jesus did heal her but still left her. Not the Jesus most of us know.For the Christian this movie would have zero inspiration and for anyone else there is little reason to even investigate this man from Galilee. If someone is wanting to bum others out on Jesus then this would be an effective movie and is the one effective thing about it.As for the ending it reflects the typical "realist" skeptic view that Jesus was only a man. A crucifixion, a burial and then apparently Mary and her entourage waiting outside the tomb and then no resurrection or anything even symbolizing it. A hummingbird floats just in front of Jesus's face as he dies on the cross. Nice touch but.... If the director wants to show tourists at the same location on the cliff where the father died and i take it that is what is intended then fine but is this story of Jesus just a story out of history where tourists come to take pictures or is there more?Not in this movie.

navi23 The film begins in an interesting way - immersing you (somewhat) into the atmosphere... but that's about it. From then onward, this movie has nothing to do with Jesus in the desert.If the director would have done just a liiiiitle bit of research into the life of ascetics who went into the desert to pray and fast... he would have made a much better movie. But this movie is a shame...This is not how a spiritual master (or even more, the Son of God Himself) prepares for the mission to save mankind by taking upon His shoulders all their sins... Not by wandering here and there and getting his head into mirages that the desert produces.According to this director, Jesus broke his fast (when the family invited him to eat, he eventually eats a bite), Jesus asks the devil (seriously?!) about the destiny of that kid, Jesus asks the devil how God is?!?!?!?!?! Seriously?!?!?! How huge an incompetence this is? What kind of person would make such a movie?...None of the dialogues from the Bible are there - just made-up stuff that doesn't rhyme with the tone of the story...No serious prayers or meditations from "Jesus" (he's also scared of the devil, mind you!...) - no significant insight into the human nature, into spirituality, into TEMPTATION... into evolution... into HIS MISSION... It could have at least been a movie about the old Obi-Wan in the wastelands on Tatooine... But this character is way below even that...Shame on you, Obi-Wan Kenobi - for taking up such a role... It would have been your most important role...

thependragonscribe To all its credit, "Albert Nobbs" director Rodrigo Garcia makes a marvelous transition of the story of the temptation of Jesus to the art-house scene, cementing this "not intended for the Christian audiences". Though the art-house Biblical story is nothing unusual, "Last Days in the Desert" makes a unique turn of focusing it as a father-son story. That is where the flaws turn out. Driving the focus away from Jesus makes the story unjustifiable to explore and insincere to depict. However, the grandiose coming from Ewan McGregor's presence and the sense of struggle makes the journey satisfying. There could have been more depth to explore from a simple scripture about Jesus' 40 days in the desert, rather than adding a father-son subplot. But from what was offered, Garcia makes an interesting piece to talk about.