Moustapha Akkad's film The Message begins with a title card that tells us that in accordance with Islam, there will be no representation of the prophet Muhammad in the movie. Accordingly, I assumed that The Message would not be about Muhammad.
I was incorrect. This is a three-hour religious film (in the vein, of course, of Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis? and The Robe) whose subject is the founding of Islam and whose central character is the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. The film does not know how to deal with this. The Message literally has no central character. Muhammad doesn't speak; Muhammad doesn't show up. He has no feelings; he doesn't do anything. Every once in a while characters speak to him or look at him, but all the camera can do is ask the performers to look directly out at us. It's bizarre. My understanding is that this desire not to show the prophet or represent him is to avoid worshipping him. But The Message is a hagiography without a saint; it makes so much more of Muhammad than a humanized narrative like The Robe or Quo Vadis? might make.
The movie might have been something with a main character, but as it is it's a long historical epic with a bunch of supporting characters we barely know. It's other main point is to justify religious violence, which... is exhausting honestly. I have no time for a film that does this kind of justification. I thought this movie was terrible.
