Risen, film review: Kevin Reynolds portrays Jesus as a happy-clappy hippy

(12A)​ Kevin Reynolds, 107 mins. Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth, Cliff Curtis, Stewart Scudamore, Leonor Watling

Nothing to shout about: Joseph Fiennes stars as the Roman tribune Clavius in Kevin Reynolds’s biblical yarn ‘Risen’

This very pedestrian, very earthbound biblical yarn, released just in time for Easter, looks at the story of the Crucifixion from the point of view of Roman tribune Clavius (Joseph Fiennes.) Working closely with Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth, on leave from Spooks), he is a loyal, hard-bitten, very dusty soldier, ready to use extreme force to keep the peace. Clavius is troubled by the way Jesus – or Yeshua as he is called here – has seemingly risen from the dead, rolling away stones he and his officers had placed in front of the tomb.

Pilate wants the body back, fearful that without it, rebellion will follow. Yeshua (Cliff Curtis), is portrayed as a bearded, smiling figure – the Messiah as happy-clappy 1970s hippy. The more Clavius learns about him, the more he falls under his spell. The problem here is that there is no zest at all to the storytelling.

Twenty-five years ago, director Kevin Reynolds made the far more invigorating Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). In Risen, he covers all the usual bases dutifully enough, but struggles to bring any spark or freshness to a story that has been told countless times on screen before.