Guided by a longtime prejudice against Broadway musicals and reinforced by a decade dedicated to fighting bathrobe-and-beard Bible films, I attended a preview screening, fully prepared to attack Superstar with all the snide sophistication I could muster. To my absolute amazement, I found the film to be compelling, moving and visually stunning. It is superb cinema, stimulating theology, and in no way anti-Semitic.

Superstar … accomplishes something I have never before seen in a biblical film: it portrays Jesus in a first century setting with a 20th century sensitivity…. [My] reaction, both cinematic and theological, is that Superstar is a fitting marriage of message and medium. This film works because the gospel story is meant to be told in poetry rather than prose. All previous Bible films … were hung up on narrative prose, with each episode presented in lurid and literal detail. Superstar sings its message in a contemporary...