The Passion of the Christ

First time seeing it: Horrified at the level of detail, but understanding it to be realism.
...then horrified again that I was in a movie theater with TODDLERS and SMALL CHILDREN, whose parents had FORCED them to watch this bloodbath solely on the hearsay of it being a "Christian" film.

Second time seeing it: This is just torture porn, in the strictest sense of the term. The film is centered around watching a human being slowly and brutally murdered, and there is ZERO narrative outside that center.

Overall, Ben Hur was a much better Crucifixion/Resurrection movie.
We FELT the injustice and brutality of Christ's death because of the genius of IMPLICATION and actual CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT instead of blood and guts flying all over the screen (a screen we are forced to keep our attention on because of the subtitles).

Also, Ben Hur actually has a STORY.

In all cinema, in all STORYTELLING, every event included in the plot must serve a purpose in the overall narrative.
Even documentaries must choose from a huge list of events, and present them in the order which will create the greatest dramatic effect.

Where previous films had included scenes of Jesus' torture as an increase in dramatic tension leading up to the climax (the actual crucifixion), we got there after a long series of ups and downs, each release in tension preceding a greater increase.

The Passion simply threw us into the rev-up to the climax, stretched that rev-up out for so long the tension threatened (or perhaps was designed, stupidly) to distract the audience and take them out of the story, and hoped we stuck around long enough to see the final resolution.

“The weakest possible reason to include anything in a story is: ‘But it actually happened.’”
-Robert McKee, Story

That a film revolves around a particular religious tradition is no excuse for incompetent storytelling.
That there are so many well-written films about Jesus makes The Passion's glaring flaws that much more obvious.