Jesus (Victor Garber), John the Baptist (David Haskell), and a nearly complete assemblage of Apostles assume the form of flower children and reinterpret the parables of St. Matthew's Gospel while frolicking around New York City. The film adaptation of Stephen Schwartz's lively and unbounded musical, which was based on a book by John-Michael Tebelak, is about as cheesed out and phony as it gets while carrying very little resonance with only Schwartz's remarkable songs keeping the film afloat. Having recently watched a filmed version of Pippin, another Schwartz scribed musical with a similar structure, it seems like the material is best suited to the stage. Then again, I've seen Godspell put on by a few amateur troupes, and the only thing that has ever stuck is the music. Another film that came to mind while suffering through a lengthy, insufferable nonmusical interlude was Yellow Submarine, where again I found my resisting the urge to reach for the fast forward button to skip the dippy filler material and return to the fantastic songs.
