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By now, I should know better than to take seriously the advertisements for made-for-TV movies wherein the reviewers use such superlatives as "Incredible!" or "Unbelievable!" Obviously, the original context of these superlatives ("It's 'incredible' that a movie like this was even permitted to be made.") has been edited out of the sound bite. But what can I say -- I'm a sap, and also a student of the Bible and theology, so when they announced a TV movie based on the story of Noah's Ark, I naturally couldn't wait to see how it turned out, even though I only expected a mediocre production.
What I got instead was the lowest of low-brow entertainment, a ridiculous caricature, a mockery of the story as it appears in Scripture...and a movie so laughable that it actually had great entertainment value and clearly deserves inclusion in the hallowed halls of IABBBBM.
The film opens with a written statement that certain artistic and dramatic liberties were taken with the plot of the Biblical story. Well, they told the truth, but they left out the part about running the entire book of Genesis through a paper shredder and then gluing together the most "dramatic" bits to come up with a plot. The script of "Armageddon" also seems to have received the shredder treatment, as well as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The end result is something like a combination of the three, featuring ancient Near Eastern characters who have British accents, make abortive attempts at witty banter, and regularly get pulverized by THE LORD, who specializes in computer-generated meteors, whirlwinds, lightning, and, of course, plenty of explosions. In the latter regard, THE LORD is not unlike Tim, the Wizard of "Holy Grail" fame.
The first scene in "Noah's Ark" is a bunch of men in primitive battle gear, beating their clubs against their shields and shouting incoherently. This goes on for what seems like several minutes, and you aren't sure exactly what the occasion is supposed to be -- it looks ceremonial but turns out to be a war between the people of Sodom (Noah's city; we'll get to that historical inaccuracy later on) and some other city. The "great" war, involving about forty or fifty combatants, features lots of shouting, ineffectual club waving, and wrestling in the mud. It ends when one guy from Sodom's army (you find this out later; there's no way to figure out who is who while the scene plays out) knocks down another guy from the opposing army, hauls out a dagger, and stabs him in the heart. The dead man's head is then ceremonially chopped off with a huge pike (the movie's rating is TV-14), and the Sodom side parades around celebrating victory.
John Voight plays Noah, the hapless protagonist who spends most of his time looking around with a sad and concerned expression, ostensibly because the society around him is so regrettably wicked and violent, but more likely because he's wondering how on earth he managed to get stuck in this unbelievable stinker of a film. During the first scene, Noah, who doesn't engage in the actual killing but waits some distance from the battleground to help bandage the wounded, does a lot of looking around sadly and pensively. He returns home to his three boys Ham, Shem, and Japheth, who are excited about the war and want to know how many men their dad slew. Noah deflects their queries with some remark that there's work to be done and looks at them sadly and pensively as they run off.
During the night, Noah hears the voice of THE LORD for the first time. THE LORD speaks to Noah in his own voice, which is an ok idea artistically in itself, I suppose, but in this movie it only means that THE LORD sounds a little like someone singing that song about Henry the Eighth ("Oy'm 'Enry the Eighth oy am; 'Enry the Eighth oy ammm..."). Anyway, THE LORD tells Noah to come up and meet him on a mountaintop, so he can spill the beans on the impending destruction of Sodom.
For those who don't know, Sodom was not built until hundreds of years after Noah's death, according to the Bible. What the movie writers have done in this film is to combine the persons of Noah and Abraham, so that in the first part of the movie, most of what happens is really the story of Abraham, and then later on, the part of the movie that deals with the Ark and the Flood is the actual story of Noah (more or less). Evidently, since the special effects budget was a lot bigger than what was needed to tell only the story of the Flood, lots of other stories from Genesis are incorporated into the plot too, and the writers simply pretend that they all happened to Noah. Students of the Bible, or even literate people who have read Genesis, no doubt sat slack-jawed at this treatment of the original narrative, and if the movie weren't so laughably bad, it would give greater cause for offense. But you just can't take the film seriously on any level, so it gets away with this indiscriminate application of "dramatic license" to Scripture.
Anyway, Noah arrives at the mountain ("LORD? It's me, Noah! ... I'm here! ... I've come a looong way...!") and meets THE LORD, once again speaking in Noah's voice and managing to sound somewhat less competent, divinity-wise, as in Bill Cosby's classic "Noah" routine. Noah shows a little skepticism about THE LORD's intention or ability to bring destruction upon Sodom, so THE LORD obligingly blows up the mountain Noah is standing on, letting rivers of computer-generated lava flow around the cracked earth at his feet. Noah stops looking sad and concerned long enough to start looking afraid and off-balance. He goes back home to get his wife and family (and distant relative, Lot, who was really Abraham's nephew) the heck out of Sodom before it all goes up in smoke.
As Noah's family treks across the hills several miles from Sodom, they see the fiery computer-generated meteors beginning to streak across the sky overhead toward their former home town. As fans of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" know, any time the God of the Old Testament appears in a movie, you can't look directly at him or bad stuff will happen to you. Noah and his wife, who have fortunately seen "Raiders," blindfold their children's eyes so they won't look back at the heavenly meteors pounding the snot out of the city. Lot's wife, a headstrong, querulous biddy of a woman who has never seen "Raiders," yanks free of her husband's grasp and turns back to look at the destruction of the city. A meteor makes a 180 turn and smacks her right in the face, burning the flesh off her skull and transforming the rest of her into a statue of salt. Lot, looking carefully around the way Wile E. Coyote does when a boulder might be about to fall off a cliff overhead, inspects his wife, makes a snide remark, and takes the ring off her finger, then pauses and snaps off one whole finger of salt to take with him as a memento (or maybe a snack? ... we don't know). Meanwhile, THE LORD is whupping Sodom with meteors just as fast as he can make them, and we're treated to plenty of camera shots of stunt men diving around and yelling with their robes on fire.
There's just so much more awfulness to this movie, which alternates between being extremely funny and extremely obnoxious in its shallow, check-out-lane-booklet-on-Angels treatment of the first book in the Bible. I've scarcely mentioned the dialogue, which should elicit groans from the audience every other minute or so, or the scene where a mob is about to sacrifice a virgin ("Ruth," I think) to the idol Molech so he'll bring good weather for the crops or something. The tottering old high priest looks at the girl and says, why, it's little Ruthie, I've known her since she was this big, and do we *have* to have a human sacrifice? One of the assistant priests reminds him that, "We've already tried a dove, a sheep, and a goat, and they didn't work!"
Ham, who has grown up by now and is courting Ruth, and his brothers Shem and Japheth, stage a rescue attempt, but are themselves captured by the mob. Noah finally appears on the scene and, after issuing a warning while looking around him sadly and concernedly, glances up and says, "It's in your hands now, LORD." THE LORD, who clearly needed no cue cards, lets loose with a whirlwind that rips the roof off the building and proceeds to send down bolts of computer-generated lightning that strike one priest in the mouth, rendering him dumb (meaning mute, of course; all the characters are already dumb), another priest in the eyes, rendering him blind, and a third in the ears, rendering him deaf. We are then treated to a brief tableau of the three standing together with their hands clamped over their injured parts, in a "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil" attempt to include some kind of moral reminder, Hollywood-style, into the picture. WhatEVER.
"Noah's Ark, Part II: Noah and the Ten Commandments" (kidding, of course) comes on tonight, and I plan to be there for the dramatic moment when, after the last elephant has accidentally urinated on Noah's neighbors and lumbered aboard the Ark, THE LORD sends down sheets of computer-generated rain and strikes down with computer-generated lightning the wicked people trying to sneak aboard the Ark without a ticket. Noah will look around sadly and with great concern and maybe some envy at all the cast members who drown in this scene and won't have to appear in the remainder of the movie.
Scene to watch for: Lot inspects his newly-preserved wife.
Best lines:
Things that make you go "Huh?": What's Noah doing in someone else's story?
The second and final installment in the "Noah's Ark" made-for-TV movie series offers fewer funny bad-movie moments and more warm-fuzzy pop theology which leaves a bad taste in the mouths of Bible believers and (hopefully) thinking people as well. But we'll start with the funny stuff.
The animals have arrived at the Ark, two by two, after parading right through the village nearby Noah's humble abode. The villagers are plenty upset that tigers have been tiptoeing through their tulips, and so we get YAMS (Yet Another Mob Scene), with everyone shouting threats at Noah and his family. The appearance of several large jungle cats from around the sides of the Ark quiets them somewhat, except for one bald-headed rabble-rouser who has been sort of a ringleader in earlier mob scenes and whose daughter is being courted by one of Noah's sons. This guy has "Pulverize me, LORD" written all over him.
The movie writers decided, charitably, to include certain of the original story elements, such as the fact that it begins to rain. There's been a drought for several years, so at first the villagers start jumping around and celebrating, again with the exception of the bald guy, since for some reason the rain feels like it's burning his skin. He doesn't run for cover, however, as you or I might if acid began to fall from the sky on our heads. Nope, Baldy just stands there with an agonized expression -- actually turning his face to the sky -- and whimpering "It's burning meeee!" I figured, hey -- consider yourself pulverized, because when the real flooding starts, that's going to be one painful ordeal.
In no time at all we get scenes of the same stunt men who spent fifteen minutes in Part I diving around with their robes on fire, only this time they're flailing around in torrents of water that rush through the village. Noah's sons, Ham, Shem, and Japhteth, enter the village on rafts to rescue the girls they've been courting and bring them to safety on the Ark. Meanwhile, about half a mile away at Noah's farm, there's hardly any flooding yet at all, and the animals stroll up the plank two by two at a leisurely pace. The overlay effects here are terrible and obvious, and you can see how fake-looking the shadows beneath the animals are. Ham, Shem, and Japheth return with the girls, and they pull shut the wide entrance to the side of the Ark. The floods rise, drowning the villagers and lifting the Ark to float atop a stillshot of broad, endless sea that we see every fifteen or twenty minutes for the remainder of the movie.
After some time at sea, the Arkanauts get a visit from -- can it be? yes, it's...the same merchant they passed by in Part I on their trek from the recently-destroyed Sodom. The merchant has built himself a contraption sort of like an oversized, wooden version of those pedal-driven paddleboats you can rent at a beach or lake. Pretty smart guy, if he threw the thing together when he realized that this rain wasn't going to let up after the first hour or ten. I guess you can outwit THE LORD's plans to destroy the earth if you're clever enough.
But anyway. Noah trades away food and water for some of the merchant's booze and trinkets. If any of you are ever likely to be stuck on a boat for an indefinite period of time, you should remember to try and get rid of your vital supplies as early as possible, since that would make for some good laughs according to Rule #1 of "How To Be Funny." The merchant leaves, and we don't see him again.
The next encounter is with several ships full of pirates. Ok, actually the pirates are mostly just the surviving villagers who were threatening Noah's family earlier, so we get YAMS again, only at sea this time. To my genuine surprise, one of them is the bald-headed rabble-rouser, and if you think he had a chip on his shoulder before, you should see him after he's swum to safety through a flood of water that feels like it's burning his skin. He tries to get the mob to attack, but the pirate captain stops him and duels with him to the death in a predictably unconvincing sword fight. Considering that Baldy's sword looks about as sharp as a standard yardstick, it's small wonder that he goes down fast, muttering his last line incoherently for realism's sake.
Well, the pirate captain turns out to be none other than Noah's old friend Lot from Part I. Since his plan is to attack and board Noah's ship, it's unclear why he killed Baldy for ordering the same thing, but you know how pirate captains are, I guess. I mean, I don't, but maybe you do. Anyway, the forty or fifty people aboard the pirate ships throw grappling hooks over the sides of the Ark and climb aboard, only to be given a thorough beat-down by the eight members of Noah's family, four of whom are female and one of whom is six hundred years old (according to the Bible, that was Noah's age; this detail was left out of the movie). Unable to defeat a few women wielding frying pans and crates, Lot, the Scourge of the Sea, catapults burning pitch onto the deck of the Ark, and things start to look grim. Or would, anyway, if this were a different movie.
THE LORD, who is the original deus ex machina, sends a whirlwind of water and a series of huge waves to extinguish the flames and also, for good measure and "dramatic" effect, to toss Lot the Pirate several hundred feet into the air, straight at the camera. He seems to be laughing all the way up. Maybe it's fun or something, or maybe he knows he won't have to appear on screen any longer.
At this point, the movie writers are getting close to the end of their list of Things That Can Happen To Movie Characters At Sea, which is:
Since there's still a good hour left to go before the end of the film, Noah, his wife, sons, and future daughters-in-law spend most of the time going insane and then snapping out of it. There are some funny bad-movie moments in this, but mostly it's just tedious and long, because it's used to set up and deliver the big theological message of the movie, which is, what kind of stupid, heartless, namby-pamby God is THE LORD, anyway?
At this point, the faithful may as well just go ahead and turn off the TV, if they haven't already done so, because the spiritual insights dished out by insane-Noah and insane-Noah's wife, and THE LORD as well, are maddeningly irresponsible in a movie that pretends to take a Bible story as its theme. Soon we learn that THE LORD hasn't really decided yet whether or not it would be a good idea to completely wipe humanity from the earth -- including the passengers on board the Ark. THE LORD claims that he needs time to "think this over carefully" before coming to a decision, and so he leaves the Arkanauts to do insane stuff for about forty minutes, after which he returns and tells Noah, sorry, but I've decided to destroy you all too...prepare to be pulverized.
Noah surprises THE LORD by refusing to plead or weep -- instead, he dances around and whistles for a minute, and then in response to THE LORD's questions, explains that he is unworthy even to cry before THE LORD and is whistling instead. Well, the sight of John Voight wearing a tunic and leggings, jumping around on one foot, and whistling with his fingers held to his eyes to stop the tears, is just so moving that THE LORD changes his mind and tells Noah that he has touched THE LORD's heart and will be spared, giving one last chance to humanity. If the lunatic specimens of humanity on board the Ark are any indication, that was the wrong decision on THE LORD's part.
Noah releases a dove to look for dry land, and it returns with an olive branch in its beak, one of the rare events that actually happens both in the Bible and in the movie. Before long, the waters have receded enough that jagged moutaintops can be seen, and the Arkanauts, inexplicably cured of their insanity, whoop it up, except for Ham, who has seen the movie "Titanic" and knows what happens when a huge ship, a great big rock, and some sensationalist screenwriters all get together. ("Hey, if it worked for Cameron, why not for us too?") The Ark does run aground on a jagged rock and has its side minutely caved in, but the movie surprises me by declining to portray a frantic struggle to free all the animals before the whole vessel fills with water and sinks.
On to the denouement: after releasing the animals, Noah marries off his sons to the three girls they've brought with them and have spent every scene trying to score with, except when they're fighting pirates, each other, or their dad. Then there's the final scene, in which Noah sits alone at night apparently trying to write down all that has happened, and THE LORD interrupts long enough to reveal that even though he is omnipotent and all that stuff, he can be wrong, too, and has come to learn that he needs humanity just as much as humanity needs him. Roll credits.
Although this is a bad movie review and should focus on the bad-movieness of "Noah's Ark," I feel almost compelled to say one or two things about its obnoxiousness in the religious department as well. There are schools of unorthodox Protestant thought and Jewish thought which do hold to a fallible God (I don't), but "Noah's Ark" can't even claim that level of theological pedigree. It's pure tripe, along the same lines as a twenty page booklet I read from a grocery-store stand, entitled "God Made Easy." The booklet featured such assertions as, "Death and hell? I wouldn't worry too much about that. At worst, you could just come back as a different person and try again."
Since God cannot be studied in the laboratory, our talk and beliefs about God must in the last case be based on authority of some sort. On what authority does the author of "God Made Easy" and the writers of "Noah's Ark" make portrayals of God? The answer is not the Bible or any other religious book, nor philosophy, nor reflections drawn from wisdom applied to life. The authority that these writers take is simply popular feeling -- what the great masses of people with shallowly religious leanings would like to believe and already believe because it is pleasant and convenient to do so. "Noah's Ark" is, therefore, simply popular belief feeding on itself and reinforcing itself. It may present itself as a story from the Bible, but it has little to do with the story of Noah either literarily or religiously. This is bad news for literature and spirituality alike, since the most treasured writings of both can be handily neutered and pressed into the service of feel-good culture. This will always happen, of course, but not always with the final hypocrisy of passing off the insipid, processed end-product as being true in spirit to the original. As a movie, "Noah's Ark" is bad, but as a piece of cultural, pseudo-spiritual propaganda it is even worse.
Response From RinkWorks:
I certainly agree with all that. The show was an utter mess. For what it's worth, however, fiery brimstone from heaven is actually how Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and the opening scenes did convey the type of chaotic sinfulness that I imagine must have preceded the flood. At the same time, perhaps that's its fault. I'm sure the evil that existed prior to the flood wasn't actually that obvious -- who could live like that? I highly doubt a human society could exist in the kind of environment where bloody wars are recreational, and at the end of the day the troops go home (to their side of the field) and party. In this case, I wanted the movie to show me something *beyond* my flawed imaginings. The recent animated "Prince of Egypt" did that and more, but this piece of scuzz was far from it. Like you, however, I'll be tuning in tonight just to see what kind of goofiness there is yet to come. Shall we take bets as to whether, during the flood, Noah falls overboard and gets swallowed by a whale? -- Sam.
I haven't been so upset or depressed by a bad movie since I watched "Wizards" and "Red Sonja" as a double feature, several years ago, before I learned how to watch bad movies and laugh at them. -- Sam. HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh my, I can't believe they got *away* with this crap! I'm sorry I missed it now. Just the thought of God telling Noah, "I guess I have a lot to learn, too" makes me start giggling. How insane is that? Sheesh. -- Dave.