This movie solidly establishes the gifts of Gibson as a director. He visually portrays what I have described without being artificial or saccharine, producing use of a amazing eye for symbolism and a good sense of timing; he plainly knows how to notify a story combining sight and sound. I will give two examples which I discovered especially powerful; they are even related. One is where Gibson shifts back and forward from shots of the feet of the roman soldiers standing in pools of his ...