"My favorite Bible story is the one where Noah's Ark gets attacked by Pirates!"


I enjoy watching poorly-made movies, and whenever a Bible epic movie is universally derided by both christians and nonchristians, well, I have to watch it.

Enter Noah's Ark, the 1999 NBC miniseries starring Jon Voight as Noah. Voight, the actor who I will always remember as the guy in Anaconda that gets eaten by the big snake, brings his own unique style to our common ancestor. Mary Steenburgen plays Noah's wife, Alexis Denisof (Wesley on Buffy/Angel) as Noah's son Ham, and F. Murray Abraham plays Lot. That's right, Lot. Apparently, they thought that it would be more interesting if, before the Flood, Noah first had to escape the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with his family and his best friend Lot. Incidentally, Carol Kane plays Lot's bickering wife who is thankfully turned into a pillar of salt during the escape (Lot keeps one of her salt fingers as a souvenir). Noah later suggests that a scribe should write down what happened at Sodom, but Mrs. Noah tells him that scribes aren't to be trusted - by the time they're done, they'll probably say that Noah's family wasn't even at Sodom. (!!!)

So, time goes by and the wickedness of the people becomes apparent when they have to rescue Ham's bride-to-be from being sacrificed to Molech ("Well, she was the only virgin we could find on short notice.") So, Noah is instructed by the Lord to build an Ark ("What's an Ark?"), and he does so, but he gets behind schedule, so the Lord arranges for Lowes' to miraculously deliver several truckloads of 1"x12"s during the night. The animals began to arrive, courtesy of stock footage, and are poorly composited onto the shot of the boarding ramp, along with a pair of CGI dodo birds. Ham notes that they didn't build a rudder on the Ark ("The Lord will guide us," says Noah), and this becomes a point of dispute later on.

The rains comes and go, and Noah's clan then spends weeks and weeks onboard the Ark. In order to ration their stockpile of food, no procreation is allowed, and therefore, no sex. Needless to say, this causes quite a bit of tension amongst the four couples cooped up at sea with nothing else to do, but fortunately, the gorillas act as chaperones and quickly intercede in any scenes that involve kissing. (Incidentally, a film goof: there's one scene with Shem and his wife where his wife is holding a koala bear, and apparently, unnoticed by the editors, the koala bear poops all over Mrs. Shem.)

Then they get attacked by pirates, led by the now-corrupt Lot, who starts the fine tradition of sea pirate captains having only one eye and having to wear a patch. They almost prove a match for our heroes until a divinely-sent tornado sweeps away the pirate ships. Later, Ham decides to build a rudder for the Ark, but Noah stops him, leading to a fist-fight that is interrupted by Noah's wife. Noah tries to defend his actions: "He tried to build a rudder against the Lord!"

In the meantime, the Lord is having trouble deciding whether or not he should just finish the job and wipe out the remnants of mankind, so he goes away to think for a while on the subject. His absence drives the passengers of the Ark mad. Like, looney-tunes mad. Our first clue is Japheth and wife strolling along the promenade deck on improvised stilts. Next, Shem begins to have indepth conversations with a puppet he made out of a grapefruit. The rest of the family goes mad in their own unique ways as well for a while (Noah: "There's monsters under the bed. I'm leaving.")

Anyway, they finally hit land, where they immediately release the animals and then they go forth to multiply.

Where do I even begin? I'm not even going to touch the theological problems with this film. Aside from combining two Bible events that are separated by several hundred years, this has to be one of the goofiest adaptations I have seen ever. This movie makes Jackie Chan's Around the World in 80 Days seem like a faithful literary adaptation. Every time I started to turn it off, it would just get more and more bizarre. Rarely do I get the chance to see something so gloriously awful. Rent it today.

Labels: film/tv/books/arts, religion/theology/philosophy