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Luther

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Alon

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Has anyone seen the movie Luther?  What did you think of it?

Take a look at the trailer: http://www.lutherthemovie.com

I saw it when it was in the theatres.

My initial impression (I have not seen it since): it was a glamorization of the man that evaded crucial historical facts, especially facts from the history of science.

Still, it provides a good visualization of the events of the time and will help anyone who proceeds to an objective evaluation of that period by reading or watching better histories.

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The movie was an atrocity! Where should I begin describing the disappointments?!

Golda Meir once said of the Palestinians, "they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." That was exactly the case with director Eric Till in this epic of disaster.

Luther was by no means a hero, he despised the secularization of the Church and was so rabidly anti-Semitic he advocated burning Jews in their synagogues.

But that is not relevant to a movie, a work of art. The opportunity here was to show a man who struggled with his own values and faught the authority of the greatest institution in Europe to defend the ideals he believed. And to portray those ideals in their tremendous importance to European history.

Yet this movie is so dry, so lacking in drama, it does not even have a climax. It was like watching a book. In that statement I no justice to author Henri Daniel-Rops whose volumes on the history of Church are brilliantly written (despite the Catholic bias) and far more dramatic than "Luther."

One hardly gets the impression that the young Luther is shocked and outraged by the corruption in Rome, he nails his 95 theses to the Church door as if it is a weekly ritual, the purveyor of indulgences is so relaxed in his speech that he hardly convinces the German peasants of their souls' damnation, let alone the audience that he is a serious actor, in his trials Luther is so unsure of himself you are as shocked by him as by Paris running away from the fight in the movie Troy.

The list goes on and on. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor are brushed off as minor characters, we are not informed that a war even occured over Lutheranism, only that 50 to 100 000 peasants died. Mysteriously. Some of the dialogue was in poor taste and the acting was a tragic disappointment from the likes of Joseph Fiennes and Peter Ustinov.

I'll conclude with this; those of you who didn't spend $15 to watch this movie, save your hopes of a historical drama that brings to life the heroes and struggles of ancient times for the movie Alexander.

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