The Passion Live's Jesus literally "Call All Angels"Last night the unspeakable happened: We let Madea movie maestro Tyler Perry push a modernized live version of the biblical Easter story to network television. Fox's The Passion Live was partly a live concert, partly a lightly staged musical, and partly a New Orleans death march, but throughout its two-hour span, it rarely pulled these pieces together into an enjoyable whole, in large part thanks to the shocking absurdity of its musical direction. Instead of revamping church classics or, God forbid, forking over money for original tunes for the event, Perry and music supervisor Adam Anders of Glee opted to shoeshine a host of vaguely spiritual pop and alternative rock radio hits of yore. It made the night a barrel of laughs when it could've been something more.The ridiculousness of the enterprise is made apparent early on when country diva Trisha Yearwood, cast as Mary, mother of Jesus, is introduced to the audience via a cover of Whitney Houston's "My Love Is Your Love." Yearwood is a great performer, but Houston's shoes were too big to fill, and the use of the song in the scene was dizzying. It would be the first of a night full of confusing song choices. Take our coiffed and peacoated Jesus (actor/singer Jencarlos Canela… wow, another JC playing JC) and the disciple Peter (New York bachatero Prince Royce) having a bros forever duet to "Home" by American Idol's Phillip Phillips. Or Jesus singing Creed's "With Arms Wide Open" as he serves the disciples communion at the Last Supper. Or Judas (American Idol's Chris Daughtry) expressing his inner turmoil with a cover of Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life." Or Peter denying Jesus to the tune of Hoobastank's "The Reason." The less is said about Jesus and Judas' Imagine Dragons square off, the better. (They're hawking a whole soundtrack of this stuff that ought to fare strangely on the charts… Lord willing.)All of this mess was crosscut with Tyler Perry's worshipful but hammy narration and scenes of a procession of a glowing cross being carried through New Orleans to the site of the event. The latter portion proved the night's most touching; the show's cohost tenaciously pushed a microphone in the faces of random marchers and found endearing stories of faith, love, and determination. It warmly undercut The Passion Live's frat bro karaoke and periodically threatened to rescue the show from itself. But this was a Tyler Perry production, and as such, heavy-handed to a point of humor. By the time the risen Jesus appeared on top of a building over the audience, bathed in white light, singing Katy Perry's "Unconditionally," you might have found yourself nearly as thankful the show was over as the onlookers were to see the risen Lord.Despite grating music choices, awkward staging, and the thick goofiness of the host, The Passion Live hit randomly on an unexplained rendition of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" by Seal as Pontius Pilate and, in closing, gospel songstress Yolanda Adams and New Orleans' Preservation Hall Jazz Band's rousing rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching Is." As the credits began to roll, The Passion Live finally remembered it was a New Orleans gospel concert and gave up the goods. Fox nuked all the performance videos from their YouTube page, so here's someone filming their TV during the show's climactic finale.Craig won't give up if you don't give up. Follow him on Twitter.
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