This is a great gee-dern movie and I really feel it doesn't get the respect it deserves here on tmdb. I watched this as a child many times and it's done a lot to make me the man I am today. If the movie had slightly better reviews, perhaps my wife would watch it and actually understand it! I am ribaldi. I just am. There is no more ribaldi character in the history of mankind than I am. It's like beauty and the beast, but more accurate. More realistic. More "now". This is the global political and economic climate of our generation, and I am pissed that more people do not know. I am so angry! I cannot speak to the origin of the film, in a more "secular" environment than the film's ultimate destination - - into a highly religion-conscious home. It's NOT a reason to say the movie is less good. It's NOT. This is where the movie belongs! Who is a greater beast than the pope?? And yet what is the stupidest argument to try to make, other than that the religious leader of the institution of Christianity is by default the most antagonistic against Christ?? BRAINS, people, BRAINS. With this thought I must bid adieu to this website, in hopes that somehow my review makes the film more accessible to its primary designated audience-- people that heretofore fail to understand me.