gods_outlaw43 A Great Educational film from start to finish, discovering that faith in Christ Jesus alone saves and not by any works we do, tho we do good works not to merit salvation, but in appreciation of Christ's finished work on Mt. Calvary, and the persecution we endure for steadfast faith in Gods divine word, I pray God will give us the courage to stand without compromise in his divine will like Luther, Tyndale and a host of others did in centuries past, 'For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.'Ephesians 2:8,9 (Authorized (King James) Version)

RainDogJr My homework for one of my Communication and Journalism classes was to watch Eric Till's 2003 biopic of Martin Luther. I never heard a thing about this film before and hell I only knew the name of Martin Luther but not really who the man was and stuff. So if not for doing my homework I would never had seen this religious film and learn something about Martin Luther. My first impression was good, I was like "well at least some names in the credits are familiar, Alfred Molina and Bruno Ganz". Technically the film is competent, is a well-done film even that sometimes it looks quite like a TV movie. The acting is good and is actually Alfred Molina the one who for me delivers the best performance in the film. It is a very small performance tough, but when Alfred Molina appears everything comes together: his very good performance and what is for me the most enjoyable, the best part of the film. And is not that it's like a great piece of film-making, no, is just that is an engaging part with Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes… he's decent if not fantastic. I'm just realizing he played William Shakespeare in the famous Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love, certainly I haven't seen that picture… I'm waiting until I have to do it to do my homework!) continuing to see what's really f***** up with the church. Actually, I quite enjoyed all of the stuff with Luther opening the eyes to the people who were buying their stairways to heaven and later facing the superiors. Is pretty much obvious and classic stuff, you can forget the religious aspect since is just the classic situation of a man doing the right thing and because of that going totally against the ones with the power, the evil ones, you know ("f*** the indulgences, better give that money to the people who really need it"… that was basically the main thing with Luther). But the film stops being engaging to eventually be totally uninteresting and plain boring, pretty much when Luther goes to see the church people ends the entertaining parts and when Luther confirms that wrote the certain books the film begins to be totally uninteresting. So, I did learn a bit about Luther (the main connection with the stuff I'm doing in the class is the stuff of the church treating people that they are going to suffer forever in hell and stuff) and for some moments I wasn't very p*ssed off with the fact that I was seeing a religious film on a Saturday afternoon instead of one of the DVDs I got the day I rented Luther (I got The People vs. Larry Flint, 6ixtynin9 and a documentary of James Dean). If you don't care about Martin Luther, there's no reason why you should check out this film, it's not bad (though some bits like the whole stuff with Luther "fighting" with God are pretty ridiculous) but very far from being something special.

jriddick07 Luther is without a doubt one of the best movies I've had the opportunity to see this year. Joseph Fiennes is Martin Luther, the professor-turned-revolutionary that shook 16th century Europe to its core.The film is remarkably in its historical accuracy, a rarity in dealing with films about historically-influential people. It doesn't pull punches, showing the brutal violence and persecution that religious differences caused among the people of Germany. There are some inaccuracies, however, most notably Luther's quoting of the Bible by chapter and verse when such a change in organization wasn't made until several years after his death. Other than this, the research that has gone into the film was very well done, with a good portion of the dialogue being direct quotes from the people portrayed.Of course, all this research would be useless without good casting, which this movie possesses in abundance. Fiennes gives an excellent portrayal of Martin Luther, showing him as the imperfect human being that he was, not the semi-deity that legend has made him out to be. His wife, Katharina von Bora, is played by Claire Cox, who rises above the limited screen-time that she was given. Then there is, of course, the late Sir Peter Ustinov, who undertook the role of Martin Luther's patron and protector, Prince Frederick (the Wise) of Saxony. Ustinov brings life to his character, who is mentioned often in historical records, but never discussed as much as his subject. Although his portrayal is inaccurate from what we know of the man – the real Prince Frederick was a shrewd political manipulator, not quite the grandfatherly figure he's made out to be in the film – it's not a detriment to the film in any way.In conclusion, Luther is an excellent movie that never quite received the attention it deserved. It portrays the world-changing events of the Protestant Reformation accurately and sets a new par for the historical film genre. I give it 9 Stars out of 10 and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in this period of history.

rapro91 This movie is more fantasy than fact. The real Luther, was a crude, anti-Semite, who boinked his maid while married, and is responsible for the slaughter of thousands of peasants. While the Church was corrupt at this time, there was a Catholic reform/renewal movement taking place w/in the Church such as St. Thomas Moore, St. Theresa, the Jesuits, the Oratory, ext.,this movie portrays all Catholics as sinister, the Church as evil,and Luther as a great saint, rather than the deeply troubled, neurotic, sexually addicted,ego maniac he was. The acting was weak. This movie is promoted strongly in many Protesant churches, but needed more balance.