Don't Believe the Hype

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I was surprise by low rating of this film. I think it's perfect movie for this kind of story. Some people said it's not historically accurate, but who know if Bible is historically accurate itself. I think that including Sodom and Gomorrah story to the film's plot is totally appropriate. Good cast: Jon Voight is perfect, his wife (Mary Steenburgen) is good too. And James Coburn. And what I like most, it's humor in almost of every scene, for example:How did it happen? God destroyed them for their wickedness. Some religious thing, huh? So, I recommend this film to everybody, who is interested in religion and especially who is not.

I did enjoy Aronofsky's NOAH and did go on youtube to relive the cinematic experience by checking a few online clips . By chance I came upon a section that proclaimed " Noah 2014 Hollywood Movie " Hmmm some naughty sinner has uploaded the full movie to YT . They'd better watch they don't cause a great plague to befall humanity . Intrigued I went on to the site and rest assured this wasn't Aronofsky's flawed masterpiece but a 1999 miniseries called NOAH'S ARK . As an amateur critic it's always nice to use the concept of structuralist film theory to contrast and compare films . . Within moments however it's clear that compared to this miniseries NOAH is not only an undisputed masterpiece but the greatest film in the history of cinema everDirector John Irvin started his career by being a war correspondent and did make the brutal and bloody HAMBURGER HILL . This is puzzling because as someone who has seen conflict at the realistic sharp end there's a strange painful bizarre tone in the opening sequence where a pitched battle between two tribes takes place . For a miniseries which I take it is produced for television the battle is exceptionally gory with pools of blood and decapitated heads being waved about on poles . The graphic violence is a sharp dichotomy with the rest of the feel with the scene that borders on high camp . The extras are obviously enjoying themselves as they yell , pull weird faces and try and fail not to burst in to laughter . I'm reminded of that MONTY PYTHON sketch of the military fairys soldiers on parade " Company - camp it up ! " . You can just imagine Irvin shooting the scene shouting through a loud hailer " Try and remember what it was like working for a living and today you're playing bloodthirsty maniacs so go out and enjoy yourselves " and enjoy themselves they do . After surviving the battle two walk on actors then have a competition to see who can give the most over the top hammy performance in the history of acting . One of them might have said " Hey big nose you've got a big nose " but I was too busy laughing to notice And so the miniseries continues in the same way . Everyone in whatever role they're playing tries to out do another with worst performance all time . They shout , they screech , they bawl and even when they're not saying anything they still use body language to put off their colleagues . I lost count of the number of times Jon Voight cocked his eyes every time the camera cut to him . If it's not enough that the cast are over emoting then the constant incidental music tries the same technique . It's loud and intrusive and feels the need to dictate if a scene is trying to be amusing , serious , menacing etc . I've no idea the religious views of John Irvin but one might jump to the conclusion that he's mocking Christianity with a deliberately bad miniseries , a sort of unofficial prequel to THE LIFE OF BRIAN but that would be crediting it with a level of sophistication and nothing on screen indicates any sort of sophistication . There' also scenes of violence which definitely belong in another film entirely and if people are complaining that NOAH is a very bad movie they should take time out and view this travesty Still if you're looking for the true life story of Noah then this might just be the film you're looking for because everything you read in the Bible is undisputed historical fact isn't it ?

Let's make this clear, I'm rating this highly because it's a very entertaining BAD movie. If you like that sort of thing (and you know who you are), this may be the movie for you. If you're looking for a serious Biblical epic or an *intentionally* funny movie, keep looking.I saw some clips on Encore, and assumed it was a parody (think "Monty Python's Life of Noah"). Then I googled it, and realized it was meant to be taken seriously. With that in mind, it's kind of like a horrible car wreck you can't look away from.Where to start...First of all, they combine the stories of Sodom and Gomorra. Since I don't actually believe either one, this didn't bother me so much. God warns Noah that He's going to destroy Sodom, and Lot gets saved because he's Noah's friend, rather than the whole "Please rape my daughters" thing that's in the Bible. In fact, Lot's daughters are left out entirely, which also gets them out of the awkward part where he gets drunk and has sex with them after they leave the city (what, you never learned that part in Sunday school?). The Ark stuff comes later.In order to make appeal to a wider audience, the "punched it up" a bit, with action, cheesy special effects, and attempts at humor, some which are funny - although the funniest bits are unintentional. There's also an incredible amount talent wasted on this film. Oscar winners (!) Jon Voight and F. Murray Abraham play Noah and Lot, with Mary Steenburgen and Carol Kane playing their wives. Even James Coburn makes a couple cameos. Their salaries didn't leave them a lot left over for minor things like decent sets. The battle scenes really do look like Monty Python. In addition to playing Noah, Voight also provides the voice of God, presumably because they couldn't afford James Earl Jones. Also, what is it about made for TV movies and accents? Noah and his wife clearly have American accents, while most other people - including their kids - have strong British accents.The tone is a roller coaster, ranging from sincerely reverent, to bawdy humor (Lot: "Not staying for the orgy, Noah?") to actual slapstick (Lot's wife fall head first into a vat of dye at one point). The music faithfully tracks the tone, transitioning from Cecile B. DeMille to Three Stooges.You may wonder why the flood happens only halfway through the movie. Without giving any spoilers, I'll just say that there's plenty to come. Grab your beer and popcorn, because that's when things get *really* weird.So if you like to watch bad movies and give them the Mystery Science 3000 treatment, keep this one in mind.In the end, I dinged it a couple of points because as a two part miniseries, it's a bit too long, and when it's not really bad, it's merely boring. I'm seriously considering buying the DVD so I can edit down to a 90 minute party cut.

Once on the classic sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies" the banker Mr. Drysdale encountered a movie producer who was making a film titled "Spartacus and Ben-Hur Meet Cleopatra and Nero." If that film had actually been made, it would have been more historically accurate than this insulting miniseries. I'm not usually a negative critic, but this is the worst film for it's type that I've ever seen in my entire life.I happen to believe the Bible is historically accurate, but even if Hallmark and NBC didn't believe that, they could have at least made the attempt to get the mythology right. Some have said the film was not intended to be taken seriously and is a tongue-in-cheek comedy. There's no real reason to see it that way, though, because it never comes across as a satire or parody like, for example, "Airplane." That film at least showed some respect for the source material it was parodying. "Noah's Ark" is just one lame episode after another thrown together with some attempts at humor injected. Furthermore, NBC marketed it as a serious Biblical epic.I loved Jon Voight in "Runaway Train" and have always enjoyed performances by Mary Steenburgen. How they couldn't have foreseen what an abysmal turkey this was going to be is beyond me. And what were James Coburn, Carol Kane and F. Murray Abraham doing in this? I still like all of them, but I have to forgive them for this mess. I saw Jon Voight on a talk show right before the miniseries aired, and when asked his opinion of what it was going to be like, he said, "It's going to be big." I hope that it was only his contract that required him to say that. It's big all right, a big vat of sewage.