cult film freak: TED NEELEY AND CARL ANDERSON IN 'JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR'

Title: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Year: 1973 Grade: C—

Musical turned Musical/Movie JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR is about the man himself, Jesus Christ, and how he has gone the way of basically becoming a sell-out, now known as The King and having so many faceless fans to add to his 12 good friends/disciples...

A good enough theme; however, the problem is the movie begins in what should be the second act, initially providing a more naive, non-famous Christ character that this movie's antagonistic anti-hero Judas stands firm with before singing counterpoint lyrics against: basically, his friend's too well-known to be safe around (in hippie parlance, Jesus has become a Scene)...

Carl Anderson in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

So the audience never experiences the major difference in the Christ character since it only centers on one, who, played by golden-voiced Ted Neeely, starts out intentionally dull and robotic, and basically continues in this fashion...

But overall, this is Carl Anderson as New Testament Black Panther Judas's ride: with an incredible voice and a powerful presence on screen, his best moment is interjecting into the grooviest song, Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene's Everything's Alright, that, like its own music video, has a beginning, middle and end: Something that the entire movie... with too many unimportant side-characters getting their own overlong songs... completely lacks.