The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1: The Journey

A note, I am an active Latter-day Saint.

First the bad...

I doubt Jews in Jeresalem in 600 BC looked like Anglo-saxons. Please find people that at least look Jewish to play the parts of Jews.

The make-up; a white woman with brown make-up to make her look Aboriginal or Jewish still looks like a white woman with make-up.

This movie was low-budget, and it looked like it. Everything seemed artificial; costumes, sets, minatures, it felt cheap. It didn't seem aged are blended in.

Lehi preaching, it seems the only thing he says is "The City will be destroyed, don't you understand" over and over. Couldn't think of any other dialogue?

Where were the master or establishing shots? There were very few, they would have helped the movie feel more complete.

The language seems inconsitant, sometimes it's modern, sometimes it's King James English. Pick one and stick to it.

This movie came off as low-rent, this is especially noted when Nephi is struggling to get free from his binds and the audience is laughing, rather than sympathising. This is becasue some parts of the movie are cheesy and that results in the audience not taking it seriously.

Cheesy parts #1... the brothers getting shocked, should have just left that out. Makes it seems like Nephi has magic powers, comes off weak.

Cheesy parts #2... Lehi's fake beard, it changes once from long straight and grey to short curly white.

Cheesy Parts #3... The aging of the characters wasn't belivable.

Cheesy Parts #4... the voice of God depicted with a deep voice and allot of reverb, cliché. Find a new way to do this. How about a soft whisper?

Cheesy Parts #5... Lemuals re-action to the angel, supposed to be a serious moment but is laughable because of his reaction.

Cheesy Parts $5... The Lamanites at the end dancing around a fire with war paint. Comes off over the top.

Now the good...

The acting was good 95% of the time, Laman was the best acted in this film.

Laban being murdered, I really like how this was done (other than the clichéd treatment of the voice of God) and it had good emotion.

Nephi's vision of being shown was is to come, again good emotion, and good editing.

Montage while Nephi is bound, well done.

We get a good sense of the conflict between Nephi and Laman.

I thought that the added dialogue (stuff not from scriptures) was good and blended scenes well. I enjoyed the added homour and seeing Nephi and his brothers bond after having conflicts.

The Joseph Smith stuff I thought was well done, except Moroni's visit, just seemed out of place the way it was done.

Final word. Before the next one, take the time to secure more money and make it the way it should be, a grand epic. Pretty good job for a first time director and allot of first time actors. I wouldn't see this one again but I would see the next installment.

I endured the Book of Mormon film at the Englewood last night. To paraphrase Mark Twain's assessment of the book as "choloroform in print," I'd rate this work as chloroform on celluloid.

Despite an opening title disclaimer from the LDS church, there were plenty of telltale embellishments of a Mormon production -- pretty, clean, crisp costumes, straight white teeth, Eurocentric looking actors, God as booming bass male voice, etc. I wasn't familiar with any of the actors, but movie lead Nephi was portrayed by a buff looking Greg Brady guy, an amalgam of Barry Williams and Lou Ferrigno. Laman was delightfully sinister. Lemuel had the voice of Chris Elliott which distracted me. Lehi was disgraceful and looked to be an understudy from the Olive Branch players. I was secretly relieved when the old patriarch died, but his deathbed scene was of predictable unpleasant duration.

Considerable Jerusalem intrigue as prelude to the Nephites blowing town, much not depicted in the opening of First Nephi, but I suppose it helped set the scene. Over an hour into the film and we'd yet to depart the book of First Nephi so I was getting pretty apprehensive about the epic running length. But this film, the first in a projected series, only deals with the first two books in the Book of Mormon.

Suitable for the kinderlach. Violent apex is some blood spattering on Nephi. Sexual situations limited to some provocative dancing by the Nephite women. Some pretty fetching halter tops on the sea voyage over.

The darkness of the bad brothers at this film's conclusion portrayed more tastefully than what I'd feared might be coming. They hadn't morphed into African-Americans, but rather had just taken on a browner hue, replete with savage makeup and behavior wailing around the campfire. A refreshing Joseph Smith portrayal to bookend the film, not the beautiful blonde boy we're often treated to in LDS depictions, but a more homely and believable farm boy. Angel Moroni in sore need of recasting. I know who the South Park producers used as their template now when they depicted this angel as a white Native-American.

I attended at the recommendation of an aged church Seventy who beamed about Hollywood production values. I questioned this initially upon watching the film, but then reminded myself that Saturday morning live-action series of my youth like Shazam, Mighty Isis, and the Banana Splits feature Danger Island were likely conceived in Hollywood. So sure, Hollywood production values. Actually there was one unique shot of Laman escaping the clutches of Laban in a long, uninterrupted run down stairs. Flying too fast for a Steadicam. So speedy it had to be mounted on a vehicle of some sort, but quite smooth.

Likely the best Book of Mormon film out there, but the competition's not too stiff. I wish someone with Mel Gibson money, although not his zest for sadism, would turn their film-making efforts to Joseph Smith's literary masterpiece. It might enhance understanding between mainstream Christians and the latter-day Saint tradition churches that sprung up in the 19th century. This film struck me as too boring an initiation ritual into the Book of Mormon, so leave your Goyim buddies at home.

Dirk Ellingson Independence, MO

Having read the Book of Mormon several times (many more times of First Nephi - many LDS members will relate) I have to say that somehow much was missed in the true spirit of the book. There were a few shining moments, but they still paled in comparison to the genuine book. I would like to say that this was a good movie and recommend it to everyone, but I cannot honestly say this. I was among many that thought it would be a good idea to bring these scriptures to life in movie form, but when I actually saw this rendering I was disturbed. The embellishments distracted from the text too much to be believable and there were things in the text that should have been left in yet were absent.

I am not going to say "Don't watch the movie" because there was a lot of good things in the movie regardless. You have to look beyond the low-budget production and mediocre acting to see what the producers and actors really tried to portray with this movie. I guess the thing that this (or any movie based on scripture) does is that it puts a face to the characters. Whether you thought these characters played their parts well or not is a matter of research and personal taste. No matter who you cast as these characters you are going to find disagreements in this matter. I do have to agree that Lehi was a disappointment as well as some of the other actors. I believe Nephi, Laman and Laban were done well for the most part. You have to remember though that the people who wrote the Book of Mormon were ordinary people, many with extraordinary commissions by nature of their callings (prophets, missionaries, warriors, etc.), not necessarily literary experts - this doesn't even take into account that they were writing in a language that was awkward for them to write because there was limited space on the plates.

Since there are inaccuracies and deviations from the original scripture in this movie, which I (and many other LDS church members) have been distracted by, you must really read the Book of Mormon and rely on that as your sacred scripture rather than this movie. It is certainly good that it draws people to reading the scripture that wouldn't have read it before seeing the movie, but for me after reading, studying and praying about the book I would have to say "read the book with intent to find the truth, but watch the movie for entertainment and enlightenment."

Please, please, please, please, PLEEAAASE DO NOT MAKE ANY MORE OF THESE MOVIES!!!!

Your hearts are in the right place, I don't doubt that at all, but you are in way over your head with this!

If I had never read the Book of Mormon before, after watching this movie, I wouldn't want to!

You're costumes looked like they were borrowed from the Manti Pageant. The make-up looked ridiculous. The acting was amateurish, not to mention the directing. And the writing just plain SUCKED! And what the hell was up with that wedding dance scene?

You are doing a major disservice to the Book of Mormon and the LDS faith by making these movies.

Come on, to take on something as epic as the Book of Mormon on such a miniscule budget is at best, laughable, at worst sacrilegious. Even John Huston knew to only take on the first part of Genesis when he made "The Bible."

Have you seen the movie "And God Spoke... The Making of."???

Your movie is essentially that. A biblical epic made on a B-movie budget and you guys are taking yourselves waaaaay too seriously!

I only hope you haven't done any permanent damage to Jacque Gray's career.

-Nate

The problem with the Book of Mormon Movie is that it isn't cinema. It's either a really expensive roadshow or a really bad made-for-TV movie. This film has no business being shown in theaters. It is, in fact, the kind of film that in the evangelical Christian market would have gone straight to video, available for purchase by catalog. The only reason this film is on the big screen is because the geographical concentration of Latter-day Saints makes that feasible. But just because it's feasible doesn't mean it should have been done.

As hoaky as I think Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" is, I have to give DeMille credit--he knew how to make a movie. He knew that you can't just put scenes from the Bible on screen. You have to play with the material, working biblical scenes into a unified narrative of your own creation, with a single dramatic trajectory carrying the audience through from start to finish. The makers of the Book of Mormon Movie didn't know to do that, or they were afraid to take the necessary liberties. They just put scenes from the Book of Mormon on screen. The result is a series of vignettes, not a unified narrative. There's no plot, no climax, no denouement. We just...well...plow through selected highlights of 1 Nephi and the opening chapters of 2 Nephi.

Why did Gary Rogers even bother making this film? I'm not a fan of turning the Book of Mormon into cinema in the first place. But if you're going to do it, do it right. Get ample funding. Get good writers. Do the research necessary to approximate the historical period. Take the liberties necessary to transform scripture into a cinematically interesting story. Don't just "put the Book of Mormon on the big screen."