Review
Creed
Film & TV
Friendship
4 min read

Testament soulfully re-tells the acts that changed the world

What happened after The Chosen?

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

A man stands the landing of an external staircase and stares out.
Angel Studios.

Testament reimagines the story of how Jesus’ disciples spread the good news of him to the world by transplanting it to an alternate-modern era. Swapping Jerusalem for London. As the followers risk everything to preach the good news, the Temple races to silence them before the oppressive Imperium retaliates. But public miracles and divided loyalties force both sides to confront the true cost of their choices. In the first episode it asks the question, what would it be like if the Son of God had come down from heaven, come to your very hometown, and you’d missed him? 

Most re-tellings of the early church usually end the story either with Jesus’ resurrection, or his ascension into heaven. Testament starts the action just after Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In Christianity, Pentecost is the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles like “a violent wind” and gave them not just the ability to be understood in any language, but also the courage and conviction to go out and tell people about Jesus. We see much of the action through the character of Stephen, a young man who decides to follow Jesus after hearing the Apostles preach. Consequently, Stephen’s mother accuses him of heresy and throws him onto the street, making him fully dependent on this early Jesus movement.  

In the first episode, the storytellers seem to have presented themselves with a bit of a challenge, by starting the action at Pentecost. Not only does it seem like the most interesting events have just happened off camera, but we’re also meeting these characters in a moment of spiritual awakening and holy joy, which is notoriously hard to depict on screen. Especially with characters we’ve just met. Nonetheless, as they navigate the logistics of having so many converts all at once (the kind of happy problem any church minister would like to have) we see that the Apostles have a familiar, lived-in quality to their inter-personal dynamics. You can easily believe that these very different men have spent every day living and working with each other for the last three years until they’ve sanded off the rough edges of their relationships.  

Whilst the show doesn’t always hold together at first, it builds momentum by tackling some of the more difficult parts of the book of Acts with sensitivity and nuance. It’s helped by the performances being incredibly watchable. The colour-blind casting is a delight, and perhaps reflective of Christianity being the most ethnically diverse religion on the planet. Tom Simper, who plays Peter, has an incredibly expressive face and a compassionate manner. Kenneth Omole who plays John can be vulnerable as he returns to the garden of Gethsemane to mourn the absence of his friend and saviour. Yet the next scene, where he is confronted by a Temple priest, he emanates a quiet authority. You can’t take your eyes off him.

If nothing else, this show gives Saul a compelling backstory and a terrifying characterisation.

Making Stephen the point of view character is a bold narrative choice. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the New Testament might feel anxious for the character, and having him be played by such a young actor as Charles Beaven underscores the upcoming tragedy. Mogali Masuku plays Mary as a woman with her head thoroughly screwed on. Her storyline shows Mary ministering to addicts and victims of human trafficking, looking gangsters dead in the eye and telling them these lost souls belong to Jesus now. On the other side of the divide is Saul. Eben Figueiredo plays him with the type of zeal that allows people to do both wonderous and terrible things. If nothing else, this show gives Saul a compelling backstory and a terrifying characterisation. It’s Saul, not the Temple establishment, who is the main antagonist of this season.  

If there is one clear misstep, perhaps it’s the depiction of what the show calls ‘The Sentinels’, the foot soldiers of the ‘Imperium’, a stand-in for the Roman Empire. Rather than being dressed in modern military fatigues, they are clad head to toe in a red, faceless body armour. The type that would be more at home in the Star Wars universe. They’re possibly dressed like this to represent the empire’s overwhelming and sinister military power, but as we see repeatedly through world events, human cruelty looks painfully normal. 

The timing of this show seems noteworthy as well. This show drops roughly a year after Angel Studios, the producers of Testament, were forced to split from the creators of The Chosen. Following the lives of the Apostles as they begin to follow Jesus, The Chosen became a monster hit and the flagship show of Angel Studios’ catalogue. So a show following the lives of the Apostles after Jesus leaves them (albeit transplanted to a different time), might be an attempt by Angel Studios to recapture some of the popularity they have lost.  

Testament definitely has a faltering start, but it has all the ingredients to be compelling TV. If you can stick with this show as it finds its feet, you will be treated to a soulful depiction of an oft-overlooked part of the Jesus story. 

Watch the trailer

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Review
Culture
Film & TV
Fun & play
Justice
5 min read

Boom! I love this new Superman!

Eschewing ennui, it’s a great fairy tale for the modern age
Superman talks to his dog amid the ice.
Superman and Krypto the dog.
Warner Bros.

…and that’s what makes this film so enjoyable! 

Oh, apologies for any confusion.  

No tortuously ‘relevant’ preamble from me today. I’m starting the review right in the middle of the action, because that is exactly what Superman does. No initial slog through a ‘backstory’ that everyone knows – even my wife, who has never read a comic book in her life, is familiar with who and what Superman is. The closest we get to contextualisation is a quick sequence of text: informing us that Superman landed 30 years ago (adopted by the Kent couple, and given the name Clark), began his superhero career three years ago, stopped the fictional nation of Boravia invading the equally fictional Jarhanpur three weeks ago, and three minutes ago lost a battle for the first time. 

Boom! 

Then straight into the action! 

Superman lands in the frozen tundra of the Antarctic and can barely breathe. He lets out a whistle and the next thing we know there is a tremendous snowy disturbance. Krypto the Superdog dashes into view! No explanation – just delight in the fact that there is a mischievous canine with unbelievable power. Krypto drags Superman ‘home’ to the Fortress of Solitude. There the Superman robots heal him with a concentrated dose of radiation from the Yellow Sun which gives him his power. He immediately departs to continue his bout against the nationalist supervillain ‘Hammer of Boravia’, who is secretly being controlled by the evil genius and billionaire Lex Luthor. 

The pace of this film isn’t fast…its hypersonic. It flies by at the speed of Superman himself. There isn’t any lag, any let up. Even the quieter moments, such as those meditating on Superman’s dual identities (the alien superhero Kal El/Superman and the human reporter Clark) or his burgeoning relationship with investigative journalist Lois Lane, keep the story moving. Exposition doesn’t take place through inexplicable monologues; it is always pacy conversation, which teaches us something about the characters and their relationships and their motivations. 

This is the great triumph of writer/director/producer James Gunn. After his success over at Marvel Studios, he has taken the helm of DC and started to create a universe of characters and stories that doesn’t waste time with painful ‘exploration’ and moralising. This was always the issue that held DC films (arguably featuring the more beloved and well-known characters in comic-book culture) back from matching the success of Marvel. Christopher Nolan is a genius, giving us a superb Batman trilogy, and Zac Snyder produced an underrated dark take on Superman, but neither seemed to delight in the bright, bubble-gum, kaleidoscopic colourfulness of the comic-book medium. 

Gunn refuses to make his Superman film gritty or realistic. Characters appear in all their flash and bombast and are welcomed as cheery additions. The ‘Justice Gang’ are simply there – including the always enjoyable Nathan Fillion with an arrogant smirk and an almost offensive bowl cut. Luthor’s genius allows his to create a parallel dimension…why couldn’t he!? If we can suspend our disbelief to accept a protagonist who is an alien superhero, why not a mini-universe?  

There is none of the former focus on psychological trauma and existential crisis and the sheer overwhelming ennui of being. In previous films the ethical lesson wasn’t just ‘on the nose’…it flattened your nose with a Mike Tysonesque haymaker! Here, Superman simply IS. He IS good. He IS upstanding. He IS fighting for truth and justice. He refuses to allow political and public-relations considerations to corrupt and dilute his absolute commitment to do (and to BE) what is right. One of the most dramatic scenes isn’t a grand battle, it is a quiet moment where Clark allows Lois to interview him as Superman. The more she questions the realpolitik implications of stopping an invasion, the more Clark becomes incensed. How could someone not allow themselves to save innocent life and serve justice to the oppressed against the oppressor? 

The film is such a ‘sigh of relief’ in a bloated comic-book-film market. Yes, the script is hilarious – this is Gunn’s forte. Yes, the music is sublime – both John Murphy and David Fleming’s score (with wonderful nods to the John Williams original) and Mr Gunn’s own needle-drops. The performances are excellent across the board – special mention to David Corenswet, who doesn’t quite look like Superman to me…but boy does he embody the very essence of the character, to the point where you can’t imagine anyone else having played the alien since Christopher Reeve. But its truest strength and victory is its joy in the simplicity (especially moral) of this comic-book genre. 

This is what is so refreshing about Gunn’s vision. Superman IS pure. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult not missing a baldy beat) IS so prideful and vain that it has warped him into something twisted and evil and collapsing in upon his own ego. Watching the film, I was put in mind of C. S. Lewis’ writing on the nature of fairy tales: 

“For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones…” 

Comic-books are the great fairy tales of the modern age…why would we make them brooding deconstructions of the human condition, a la Cormac McCarthy? That isn’t their point or purpose. Lewis again: 

“Since it is so likely that they [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” 

Gunn has given us a film that isn’t just fun and fluffy, but important. In his sugary, childlike wonder and delight in the genre, he has given us a tale of good versus evil that is a true fairy tale: something gleaming and good, something radiant and right, something attractive and aspirational. Superman is a fairy tale where we can be comforted and emboldened by the moral (nay, ontological!) certainties of love and hope.  

5 stars

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If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
 
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