SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

SnoopyStyle Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes) is a doubting monk in 1507 Erfurt. He is angered by indulgences after a 2 week trip to Rome. He is sent to Wittenberg to study. He starts preaching against profiting from fake relics and the selling of indulgences. The church is raising funds to build St. Peter's Basilica. Father John Tetzel (Alfred Molina) is a traveling monk selling the new indulgences. Luther's frustration boils over and he nails "The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" on the doors of his church. It's the start of the Protestant Reformation as his declaration puts him at odds with powerful forces, most importantly the Pope.I am not a theologian or a history expert. I don't know how much of the real story is retained and how much is simplified. I also take no sides in the battle. I feel for any Catholic who takes offense to the portrayal of the papacy. All of that is beyond the scope of this review. Joseph Fiennes is great with a few moments of overwrought acting. As a movie, it's compelling for the most part. The ending does lack a certain excitement. It ends at a perfectly good spot. The problem is that nailing the Theses is such a climax. The rest of the movie isn't quite as iconic.

bonniesherwood Found this on sale several years back and decided to give it a try. Best blind movie purchase I've ever made.The movie keeps you entertained throughout. Through my own personal study of Luther I did notice a couple of historical inaccuracies but they are so minor they, in my opinion, do not take anything away from the film.My husband and I greatly enjoy this film and have watched it many times. Watch this film. Better yet, purchase this film. If you are a lover of history, religion/theology, or just good cinema I do not think you will be disappointed.

Djard Folks who have never read the whole Bible, and those who don't accept it as the only reliable source of information about God, will not find this historically accurate portrayal of Christianity's rejection of man-made religion as appealing. Truth is often most inconvenient. As Christ conveyed, to the saved, servants like Luther will be the "fragrance of Christ"; to the unsaved, he will be as the "smell of death." The only shortcoming in this moving biography is the lack graphic attention to Catholicism's vicious persecution of genuine Christians (belief in 'Sola Scriptura' was, and today still is, deemed as heresy). This powerful movie may properly have been called 'The Rejection of Babylon the Harlot' as detailed in Rev. 17.

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.