My wife and I went on an overnight trip to the Bentonville temple and had come across an ad for this movie and decided to give it a go; The director had cast some spiritual credibility on himself by saying that he had gone through a near death experience, insinuating that a revelatory experience was what spawned this production.
I had no idea what to expect. I did have a reserved hope that the film would be a higher quality B of M production than other attempts I'd seen.
I didn't even see an attempt to portray a story from the Book of Mormon. This was a purely "made up" speculative story; a fantasy that someone created out of thin air (or maybe from mists of darkness)...
In the Book of Mormon you have a myriad of inspiring TRUE stories that could have been dramatized! Did this producer not think any of those stories were good enough? That his speculative story surpassed those actually in the book? A few examples of stories he could have portrayed that would have been TRUE and a thousand times better, and much more entertaining to boot:
-Nephi and his brothers obtaining the brass plates
- Lehi's family traveling to the promised land (the challenges, the miracles, family drama, the Liahona)
- Abinadi's testimony to King Noah and priests; and Alma's escape and ministry
- Ammon's defense of the King's servants
- Kingmen vs Freemen and Captain Moroni/Pahoran
I could go on and on. There are so many amazing stories in the Book of Mormon that it is shockingly disappointing that this producer chose this route. I was horribly disappointed. It feels like a very misguided and selfish direction was taken, with complete disregard for core audience -members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Why did I give it 2 stars instead of 1? Because Billy Zane does a great job as the villain - the only thing I liked about the movie.
