I haven't seen Passion of the Christ yet... and actually I'm not sure if I'm going to (I'll probably wait til the book comes out)... but this is a pretty typical review of the movie from JSOnline.

But it's hard seeing too much too clearly for all the blood. Gibson subverts our presumed familiarity with the biblical material by using a level of violence that is probably intended to make us see old things in a new way, while simultaneously making them almost unwatchable.
...
He is beaten by the temple guards, gleefully flayed by the Romans and left a dead man walking the stations of the cross. A crown of thorns pressed onto his head makes a sickening sound, his arm is pulled out of its socket to fit the rough-hewn cross, a nail driven into his palm drips blood as it passes through the wood. He is sweaty and anxious in Gethsemane and, shortly after he is dragged from the garden, a severe beating swells one of his eyes shut. The other eye remains fiercely fixed on his accusers, even as it sheds a tear for mankind.

But only the eye of the beholder will determine whether all of this is seen as extremely profound or profoundly extreme.

That's strange, my version of the Bible has Jesus dying of laughter from being tickled by feathers and licked by kittens. Do people actually think that being Crucified didn't hurt? That wearing a crown of thorns doesn't cause your scalp to bleed? Have you ever cut any place on your head? Even a small cut causes tons of blood because of the large number of blood vessels in the head. This is actually a very accurate portrayal of a typical crusifiction... which was an extremely long and torturous way to die.