Jesus Christ Superstar

Having seen the Norman Jewison version of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) six times during its opening week, I cued up this filmed stage version of the hit musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice with somewhat less than immaculate objectivity. After the wildly kinetic treatment by Jewison, this relatively modest production (with the Romans, for some reason, looking vaguely neo-Nazi) seems downright tame. Glenn Jordan has the requisite, if historically inaccurate, blond-haired, blue-eyed, baby-faced Jesus look, but he just doesn't have the blood, sweat, tears and, most importantly, pipes that Ted Neeley brought to the feature film (who can forget Neeley's castrato-like screaming version of "Gethsemane"?). One pleasant surprise, however, is Fred Johanson's hunka hunka burning Roman procurator rendition of Pontius Pilate; he pulls off nasty and weepy with equal aplomb. Not a terrible adaptation by any means, but viewers hyped after seeing Universal's superlative Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat are likely to be disappointed here. Optional. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)