Noah's Ark

This was on the children's shelf at our local video store. BIG mistake; there's enough violence in this to give an adult nightmares, let alone a child, and more sexual references than I'd care to explain to my innocent six year old. We did a lot of fast forwarding in the beginning.

That said, even as an adult movie, this is a completely unredeemable film. The script is stupid, and the story is so twisted and convoluted that it would hardly be recognizable as a Bible story at all if it weren't for the big boat and the pairs of animals. If they wanted to do a Sodom and Gomorrah movie (not that I think that would go over well in today's political climate, but I'd like to see it anyway), they could have done one, and not tried to throw that event (which was a good thousand years, at least, after Noah's Flood) in with the flood. The script is tasteless and stupid, the acting (especially by Mary Steenburgen) is wooden. Even the scene with the animals, which is prettily-enough done, isn't enough to make this a movie worth watching. Give this one a miss, and definitely DO NOT get it for your kids.

This story was great story to read from the bible it was one of my most favorite stories that I heard coming from Sunday school in church. But that was in the year of 1981. I am now 27 years old and happily married.

I was excited to rent a movie that I just knew I would love knowing that it was my most favorite story to hear when I was a child.

As I was watching the movie I notice the character of Lot.

Noah must of been really old For at that time if Lot was living Noah was 2,458 years old. Now it is recorded that Noah lived to be 950 years old. My question is how is it that Noah was alive at the same time Lot was alive? Impossible! And While I am on the subject of Lot, yes, he had a wife named Sarah, but what happened to his two daughters? As I look at my facts I see that the writer got Noah and Abram confused. It was Abram who rescued Lot and Lot's family(wife and two daughters.)Lot's wife name was Sarah the writer got that right. In the movie I noticed that the writer left out the two daughters that Lot had. How sad... We know that Lot was living in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah. Which should tell you that when this tragic occurrence happen it was at least 2,458 years later after the flood. This writer said in his story of Noah that Sodom and Gomorrah happened before. Again, Impossible! My only thoughts on this is I hope and pray that the writer can learn from his misinformation he presented in this movie. And I encourage the writer to read the Holy Bible. The book of Genesis.

...are words that describe GOOD films like "The Ten Commandments", "Elizabeth" and "The Odyssey" rather than this terrible excuse of a mini-series. When NBC was advertising this "gripping" television movie, I was convinced that this movie was going to be good. I was comparing it to "The Odyssey" which was another on-sea epic. But that was the only similarity. "The Odyssey" was an excellent, captivating, ACCURATE true-to-the-real-story film. "Noah's Ark" was probably the worst piece of garbage that has come out of my t.v. What an insult to the Catholic faith! If you want a movie, that is faithful to the its real story, rent "The Odyssey" and "The Mission". You want to see a better performance out of Alexis Denisof? Watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" his role as the uptight Wesley Wyndham-Pryce suits him better than this the feeble character he played here. And you want to see an excellent mini-series this year? Watch the CBS movie "Joan of Arc". Now THAT was a good movie.

I now know what eternity would be like. This incredible mess occupied four hours I will never get back. My kids wanted to watch it. They liked the animals. I am no Old Testament scholar, but the way the script played fast and loose with the details, was really disappointing. I'm sure all of us remember Lot! He's the guy who left the city of Sodom with his wife. She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. I never realized he kept her finger in a jar after that. I also didn't know that he later became a pirate and tried to board the ark. If Noah had gone up the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, I wouldn't have been surprised. You can imagine a screenwriter, trying to adapt about two Bible chapters into a four hour mini-series. Still, with imagination and effort, it could have worked. The characters are ridiculous. This has got to be the lowest that Mary Steenbergen has gone. Her character is a mawkish idiot, spouting 1960's June Cleaver dialogue. Noah, played by John Voight, is a buffoon, and then they have these three sons who shovel dung and complain. Except for Japhet, who is the artist. He sits around and ponders. One of them develops a ventriloquist act and talks to an orange for about an hour. The animals are superimposed using computer graphics but not very well. I know it is a mini-series, but visually it is awful.

Most of the film involves the Noah family sitting around being bored. There is this thing about not putting a rudder on the boat so they are floating around, as if they knew where they were going anyway. The Lord was my favorite. He had this silly conversational voice, somewhat indecisive and flippant, sort of like George Burns. The scene where the whole family goes temporarily insane is when I finally gave up. I am as open minded as the next person, but I'd like to hear some sort of justification for this mess. Was it entirely tongue in cheek? Did I miss the whole point because no-one was supposed to be serious. Oh, well, I am interested to see other comments about this thing.

After struggling for an hour and 45 minutes (including many commercials,) I concluded that this theological hodge-podge coupled with "B" movie Hollywood "glitz" was insulting my intelligence, plain inane, and boring. Jon Voight was much more exciting in Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home and Deliverance.

I hope we have seen the last of this one and the producers will not waste their time producing a video for sale and rent.

I must admit that the animal computer simulations were extremely well done and thoroughly enjoyed by my four year old grandson!