We rented five movies for New Year's Eve weekend and watched this one first. All I can say is that there was no place to go but up after watching this one. It was pointless and vulgar. Harvey Keitel's script must have been easy to write -- just make two out every three words a curse word. Andie McDowell is surprisingly good in a character roll, but the movie has nothing else to recommend it.
Reviews
4 Reviews
The Omega Code
(1999)
Good idea poorly executed.
18 October 1999
The premise of the movie is really interesting, but the movie was not very well done. Michael York and Michael Ironside do a good job, but the rest of the acting is poor. The dialog is hokey, the action doesn't flow smoothly, and the ending looks like they ran out of money and had to end the film quickly. Definitely a B movie.
Election
(1999)
The third worst movie I have ever seen!
17 May 1999
This is one of the worst, most vulgar movies I have ever seen. If we had not been boxed in on the aisle, we would have walked out. Frankly, I wanted to walk out any way. The movie includes adultery, fellatio, lesbianism, and statutory rape.
Besides all that, it wasn't even funny!
Besides all that, it wasn't even funny!
Noah's Ark
(1999)
YUCK!
4 May 1999
I find precious little on television that is worth watching, but I am always interested in how the media handle biblical material. Therefore I welcomed the opportunity to see this presentation of "the mighty epic of Noah and the flood" (Hallmark's estimation of the biblical story). Because this mini-series, lasting almost 170 minutes without commercials, is to be broadcast in prime time by one of the major television networks (NBC) my expectations were heightened.
In some respects the production does not disappoint. The producers have created some impressive visual effects (such as the gathering of the animals into the ark), and they have found creative ways of answering some practical questions raised by a reading of the biblical account (e.g., How did Noah get the wood for the ark? By a miracle! Noah awoke to find all the lumber he needed sawn to order, neatly piled, and each board marked according to where it should fit in the structure.). The film is also to be commended for the restraint exercised in the speech of the characters, who rarely utter vulgarities, and for its reserve in presenting sexual scenes.
But this is about as far as my commendations may go. From an artistic perspective, some scenes are impressive visually, but as a whole the production is empty, devoid of artistic merit. Especially garish and utterly lacking in integrity is the introduction of a peddler who appears at two critical moments in the drama. Presumably the producers intended him to provide some comic relief, but in the process he serves as a foil for exposing flaws in the characters of Noah and his family. The dialogue in the film consists to a large extent of one-liners more at home in a stand up comedy hour than in a movie supposedly based on Scripture, and dealing with human sin so intense it called for the virtual wiping out of the race. In the opening disclaimer the producers declare that "for dramatic effect we have taken poetic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah and the flood". However, having watched the movie twice, I observe a great deal of license but precious little poetry. There is no serious plot; the story moves from one exciting episode to another, but often without logical connection. The performances of the actors are melodramatic at best and pathetic at worst. I watched the film with ten of my students and when it was over we all pondered over the message of the production. We had endured 170 minutes of visual and aural effects but without grasping the point. On the surface the film appears innocuous ethically.
However, upon closer reflection, its message is far from innocent. To be sure there are no explicit bedroom scenes, but the production is laced with sexual innuendo. In the first half almost five minutes are devoted to Noah's sons' overtures to potential lovers (given the virtuous names of Esther, Ruth, and Miriam), in the course of which we witness a parodic presentation of virginity. Noah's son asks Ruth whether virginity is really worth more than death, but in context this can hardly be taken as a serious rhetorical question for the viewer to ponder. Later, in conversations among Noah and his family inside the ark one hears a rather lengthy series of interchanges concerning the sexual rules to be followed on board the ship. To prevent procreation, Noah decrees that there are to be no sexual liaisons at all while the ark is afloat. But these conversations are not only loaded with suggestive sexual comments; they are quite superfluous when compared with the biblical text which presents these women as the wives of Noah's sons.
On another issue, although the film may not contain explicit sexual images or overtly vulgar language, it is driven throughout by violence, which is graphically portrayed. The production opens with seven minutes of unrelenting images of brutality by the inhabitants of Sodom, justified with a biblical quotation, "The end of all flesh has come before me. . . . the earth is filled with violence through them." Included in this sequence is a conversation between Noah and his sons. Of course the boys are excited over the battles, but one is disturbed by the fact that among the first words to be heard from the mouths of children are these questions posed by one of Noah's boys, "Father, how many did you kill? Did you bring a sword as a keepsake? Did you bring us an enemy ear?" Later collective violence is glorified with five full minutes of violence as Sodom is devastated, nine minutes as the earth is destroyed by the deluge, and ten minutes portraying a fictional but deadly fight on the ark between Lot's band of ruffians and Noah's family. But abusive physical behavior is conducted also at the personal level.
The image of Noah's son knocking Ruth out with a slap to the face because she did not want to board the ark is unconscionable given the current epidemic of male abuse of women. Equally offensive is the calloused image of Lot, who witnesses his wife turn into a pillar of salt and then casually breaks off a finger (which he preserves in a bottle and reintroduces later). But the violence is not restricted to the men; the women in the film have themselves come of age. When Noah's son demands sex with Ruth, she pulls a knife from her stocking to defend her virginity. A modern reader can hardly miss this scene as the ancient equivalent to a concealed handgun. Later, in the altercation with Lot on board the ark, Noah's wife and the three women are portrayed as heroic fighters against Lot's bandits.
The film's pervasive violence is symbolized by images of knives and swords which may be produced at any moment to solve any problem. With these observations I do not deny that violence is found in the Bible. To a large extent biblical narratives depict fallen humanity at its worst. But never do we find such exploitation of violence for the sake of sheer entertainment. But Hollywood capitalizes on the power of visual images and the sound of violence to grip the witness. The effect of this kind of pollution of the mind is to desensitize the viewer to the fundamental dignity of every human being by virtue of his/her creation as an image of God. The events in Littleton Colorado this past week provide gruesome illustration of the horrific consequences on the American soul of this incessant glorification of violence by the media.
As striking as these impressions are, the most obvious problem for any viewer who treasures the Scriptures at all is the manner in which "Noah's Ark" exploits and abuses the biblical record. The mini-series opens with a disclaimer, "We have taken poetic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah". This comment creates the impression that the producers have only rarely or occasionally colored over the lines and gone beyond the natural reading of thetext.But this tends to be the rule rather than the exception. The story opens with a picture of the evil of Sodom, which is intended as a backdrop to the great flood. Later we will learn that Sodom was destroyed as an object lesson for the rest of the world, so they might ward off the fury of God. But this is impossible. According to the book of Genesis, the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah appears ten chapters after Noah and his family emerge from the ark, and Lot is separated from the time of Noah by at least ten generations (Genesis 11), and probably by more than a thousand years later than Noah. Beyond this, the story conflates other biblical images. In an early sequence of scenes Noah is portrayed as a Moses figure, going to the top of the mountain to meet with God, but then he is transformed into a Abraham, who intercedes on behalf of Sodom. Even then the film's portrait of the man is ambivalent. On the one hand Noah is admired for the manner in which he is able to relate to God, but on the other, he is a buffoon, a drunk, a mad man. In the end he appears as a senile old man. Because Noah cannot remember his own marriage vows his wife officiates at the marriage of their sons and the three young women who accompanied them through the flood.
Other anachronisms and chronological lapses abound. The offering of Ruth as a sacrifice to Molech occupies a major series of scenes even though the first mention of Molech in the Bible occurs in Leviticus 18, written at least 500 years after Lot! As already intimated, the unexpected appearance of a peddler at two critical moments in the drama is not only tasteless; it finds not a shred of justification in the biblical text. The same is true of the film's presentation of a mutiny on board the ark by Noah's family, precipitated by the lack of a rudder on the ark. In the mean time Noah, his son, and his wife in turn display evidence of dementia. Apparently their time on the ark has taken its toll.
Of course all these scenes and most of the rest of the film is entertaining and imaginative. But it is hardly innocent. In the movie we see a graphic illustration of post-modern hermeneutic at its worst. This approach to the Bible insists that the meaning of the biblical text resides in the reader, rather than authorial intent. Accordingly any reader is invited to find whatever meaning he/she wants in the text. Hollywood's interpretation is as valid as that of a serious commentator, and certainly much more exciting! Perhaps most troubling of all in "Noah's Ark" is its portrayal of God, who is presented alternately as confused, indecisive, foolish, and weak. The film closes with a final dialogue between God and Noah in which God confesses to Noah his own struggles with what has happened. The conversation goes something like this:
God: Perhaps I went too far. I am one, eternal, perfect, but I can be wrong. Don't ask me to explain. I saw humanity destroyed. I know that is not the way. I need man as much as man needs me. We fulfill each other, so there has to be a covenant between us, one with another....
Noah: Even if the earth is given over to the wicked?
God: Mankind is more than capable of destroying itself. It doesn't need any help from me.
With this divine declaration ringing in the ears of the viewer the film closes: Mankind needs no help from God! For anyone with a high view of God, these words are troubling in the extreme if not downright offensive. God is reduced to an equal with man. He needs man to fulfill him. This is a shameless perversion of the truth as it is presented in scripture: It is not that God needs us, as process theologians insist, but that we need him, desperately. He is the eternal one, the perfect one, the all-sufficient one, the holy sovereign LORD, who always does what is right (Gen 19:25; Isa 40:12-31). We are the ones who are impotent, like Noah standing in acute need of his grace. We need to wake up to the truth recognized by the Noah of the Scriptures that sin is nothing to be trifled with. Apart from the saving grace of God our fate is the same as that of his contemporaries and that of Sodom.
Has this mini-series on Noah then no redeeming qualities at all? It is difficult to find any, other than that it might fill three hours of one's time. Viewers will learn nothing truthful about the Bible from this movie. This film confirms a non-Christian's sense of freedom to think about God however he or she wants. The producers will probably argue that this is just entertainment, and that they have a right to adapt and skew a biblical account any way they want. If it is a matter of rights, of course this is true. But the issue is not that innocent. If all of NBC's viewers were thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, they would be able to see through the reckless treatment of the biblical text, and perhaps pass it off as entertainment. But this is more than mindless entertainment. Unfortunately the television screen provides the only Bible many people ever "read." For those for whom this is the case, this film has as little correspondence to biblical truth as candy and chocolates have to nutrition and dental hygiene. Rather than enlightening "the eyes of the heart" it darkens the soul to the reality of the human condition and increases resistance to the God who confronts us in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. Oh for the innocence of Stanley Cup hockey or Monday night football!
Daniel I. Block John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, KY
April 28, 1999
In some respects the production does not disappoint. The producers have created some impressive visual effects (such as the gathering of the animals into the ark), and they have found creative ways of answering some practical questions raised by a reading of the biblical account (e.g., How did Noah get the wood for the ark? By a miracle! Noah awoke to find all the lumber he needed sawn to order, neatly piled, and each board marked according to where it should fit in the structure.). The film is also to be commended for the restraint exercised in the speech of the characters, who rarely utter vulgarities, and for its reserve in presenting sexual scenes.
But this is about as far as my commendations may go. From an artistic perspective, some scenes are impressive visually, but as a whole the production is empty, devoid of artistic merit. Especially garish and utterly lacking in integrity is the introduction of a peddler who appears at two critical moments in the drama. Presumably the producers intended him to provide some comic relief, but in the process he serves as a foil for exposing flaws in the characters of Noah and his family. The dialogue in the film consists to a large extent of one-liners more at home in a stand up comedy hour than in a movie supposedly based on Scripture, and dealing with human sin so intense it called for the virtual wiping out of the race. In the opening disclaimer the producers declare that "for dramatic effect we have taken poetic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah and the flood". However, having watched the movie twice, I observe a great deal of license but precious little poetry. There is no serious plot; the story moves from one exciting episode to another, but often without logical connection. The performances of the actors are melodramatic at best and pathetic at worst. I watched the film with ten of my students and when it was over we all pondered over the message of the production. We had endured 170 minutes of visual and aural effects but without grasping the point. On the surface the film appears innocuous ethically.
However, upon closer reflection, its message is far from innocent. To be sure there are no explicit bedroom scenes, but the production is laced with sexual innuendo. In the first half almost five minutes are devoted to Noah's sons' overtures to potential lovers (given the virtuous names of Esther, Ruth, and Miriam), in the course of which we witness a parodic presentation of virginity. Noah's son asks Ruth whether virginity is really worth more than death, but in context this can hardly be taken as a serious rhetorical question for the viewer to ponder. Later, in conversations among Noah and his family inside the ark one hears a rather lengthy series of interchanges concerning the sexual rules to be followed on board the ship. To prevent procreation, Noah decrees that there are to be no sexual liaisons at all while the ark is afloat. But these conversations are not only loaded with suggestive sexual comments; they are quite superfluous when compared with the biblical text which presents these women as the wives of Noah's sons.
On another issue, although the film may not contain explicit sexual images or overtly vulgar language, it is driven throughout by violence, which is graphically portrayed. The production opens with seven minutes of unrelenting images of brutality by the inhabitants of Sodom, justified with a biblical quotation, "The end of all flesh has come before me. . . . the earth is filled with violence through them." Included in this sequence is a conversation between Noah and his sons. Of course the boys are excited over the battles, but one is disturbed by the fact that among the first words to be heard from the mouths of children are these questions posed by one of Noah's boys, "Father, how many did you kill? Did you bring a sword as a keepsake? Did you bring us an enemy ear?" Later collective violence is glorified with five full minutes of violence as Sodom is devastated, nine minutes as the earth is destroyed by the deluge, and ten minutes portraying a fictional but deadly fight on the ark between Lot's band of ruffians and Noah's family. But abusive physical behavior is conducted also at the personal level.
The image of Noah's son knocking Ruth out with a slap to the face because she did not want to board the ark is unconscionable given the current epidemic of male abuse of women. Equally offensive is the calloused image of Lot, who witnesses his wife turn into a pillar of salt and then casually breaks off a finger (which he preserves in a bottle and reintroduces later). But the violence is not restricted to the men; the women in the film have themselves come of age. When Noah's son demands sex with Ruth, she pulls a knife from her stocking to defend her virginity. A modern reader can hardly miss this scene as the ancient equivalent to a concealed handgun. Later, in the altercation with Lot on board the ark, Noah's wife and the three women are portrayed as heroic fighters against Lot's bandits.
The film's pervasive violence is symbolized by images of knives and swords which may be produced at any moment to solve any problem. With these observations I do not deny that violence is found in the Bible. To a large extent biblical narratives depict fallen humanity at its worst. But never do we find such exploitation of violence for the sake of sheer entertainment. But Hollywood capitalizes on the power of visual images and the sound of violence to grip the witness. The effect of this kind of pollution of the mind is to desensitize the viewer to the fundamental dignity of every human being by virtue of his/her creation as an image of God. The events in Littleton Colorado this past week provide gruesome illustration of the horrific consequences on the American soul of this incessant glorification of violence by the media.
As striking as these impressions are, the most obvious problem for any viewer who treasures the Scriptures at all is the manner in which "Noah's Ark" exploits and abuses the biblical record. The mini-series opens with a disclaimer, "We have taken poetic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah". This comment creates the impression that the producers have only rarely or occasionally colored over the lines and gone beyond the natural reading of thetext.But this tends to be the rule rather than the exception. The story opens with a picture of the evil of Sodom, which is intended as a backdrop to the great flood. Later we will learn that Sodom was destroyed as an object lesson for the rest of the world, so they might ward off the fury of God. But this is impossible. According to the book of Genesis, the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah appears ten chapters after Noah and his family emerge from the ark, and Lot is separated from the time of Noah by at least ten generations (Genesis 11), and probably by more than a thousand years later than Noah. Beyond this, the story conflates other biblical images. In an early sequence of scenes Noah is portrayed as a Moses figure, going to the top of the mountain to meet with God, but then he is transformed into a Abraham, who intercedes on behalf of Sodom. Even then the film's portrait of the man is ambivalent. On the one hand Noah is admired for the manner in which he is able to relate to God, but on the other, he is a buffoon, a drunk, a mad man. In the end he appears as a senile old man. Because Noah cannot remember his own marriage vows his wife officiates at the marriage of their sons and the three young women who accompanied them through the flood.
Other anachronisms and chronological lapses abound. The offering of Ruth as a sacrifice to Molech occupies a major series of scenes even though the first mention of Molech in the Bible occurs in Leviticus 18, written at least 500 years after Lot! As already intimated, the unexpected appearance of a peddler at two critical moments in the drama is not only tasteless; it finds not a shred of justification in the biblical text. The same is true of the film's presentation of a mutiny on board the ark by Noah's family, precipitated by the lack of a rudder on the ark. In the mean time Noah, his son, and his wife in turn display evidence of dementia. Apparently their time on the ark has taken its toll.
Of course all these scenes and most of the rest of the film is entertaining and imaginative. But it is hardly innocent. In the movie we see a graphic illustration of post-modern hermeneutic at its worst. This approach to the Bible insists that the meaning of the biblical text resides in the reader, rather than authorial intent. Accordingly any reader is invited to find whatever meaning he/she wants in the text. Hollywood's interpretation is as valid as that of a serious commentator, and certainly much more exciting! Perhaps most troubling of all in "Noah's Ark" is its portrayal of God, who is presented alternately as confused, indecisive, foolish, and weak. The film closes with a final dialogue between God and Noah in which God confesses to Noah his own struggles with what has happened. The conversation goes something like this:
God: Perhaps I went too far. I am one, eternal, perfect, but I can be wrong. Don't ask me to explain. I saw humanity destroyed. I know that is not the way. I need man as much as man needs me. We fulfill each other, so there has to be a covenant between us, one with another....
Noah: Even if the earth is given over to the wicked?
God: Mankind is more than capable of destroying itself. It doesn't need any help from me.
With this divine declaration ringing in the ears of the viewer the film closes: Mankind needs no help from God! For anyone with a high view of God, these words are troubling in the extreme if not downright offensive. God is reduced to an equal with man. He needs man to fulfill him. This is a shameless perversion of the truth as it is presented in scripture: It is not that God needs us, as process theologians insist, but that we need him, desperately. He is the eternal one, the perfect one, the all-sufficient one, the holy sovereign LORD, who always does what is right (Gen 19:25; Isa 40:12-31). We are the ones who are impotent, like Noah standing in acute need of his grace. We need to wake up to the truth recognized by the Noah of the Scriptures that sin is nothing to be trifled with. Apart from the saving grace of God our fate is the same as that of his contemporaries and that of Sodom.
Has this mini-series on Noah then no redeeming qualities at all? It is difficult to find any, other than that it might fill three hours of one's time. Viewers will learn nothing truthful about the Bible from this movie. This film confirms a non-Christian's sense of freedom to think about God however he or she wants. The producers will probably argue that this is just entertainment, and that they have a right to adapt and skew a biblical account any way they want. If it is a matter of rights, of course this is true. But the issue is not that innocent. If all of NBC's viewers were thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, they would be able to see through the reckless treatment of the biblical text, and perhaps pass it off as entertainment. But this is more than mindless entertainment. Unfortunately the television screen provides the only Bible many people ever "read." For those for whom this is the case, this film has as little correspondence to biblical truth as candy and chocolates have to nutrition and dental hygiene. Rather than enlightening "the eyes of the heart" it darkens the soul to the reality of the human condition and increases resistance to the God who confronts us in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. Oh for the innocence of Stanley Cup hockey or Monday night football!
Daniel I. Block John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, KY
April 28, 1999
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