The Ark

...is the basic sin of this bizarre film. it is a lesson of a boring teacher, it is a preach from a not brilliant pastor but it is not a real film about Noah and the flood. and, sure, many religious films are made for a precise and small public. but, in this case, more details are different. first, the story. who is just a sketch. second - the too obvious moral message,, mixing contemporary social problems with the period of the flood. not the last, the effort of Joanne Whalley and David Threlfall to save a lost cause. it is not a bad film. only an anonimous one. un convincing. and soulless.

Writer Tony Jordan has gone to a back to basics re-telling of the story of Noah. Less of the actual floods and the animals going two by two. After all this is a BBC television movie and the budget was never going to be mega unless Russell Crowe had signed on.

David Threlfall plays Noah and Joanne Whalley plays his loyal wife with their three grown up sons living a hard working life in the desert (it was filmed in Morocco.) Noah is committed to God but a visit to the local market town with his son shows him a life there without belief where violence, faithlessness and cheating is close at hand.

This version has the family in the centre of the drama as well as faith. When Noah gets a visit from God's messenger, family loyalties are put to the test as he goes about building an ark first by himself, then helped by his wife before the rest of the family pitch in which is made to look like hard even bad breaking work.

The film tries to be a modern small scale parable with its comparison to a world of science and bankers although I think it does not entirely carry it off as it comes too close to be rather preachy. The film also disappoints as it strips maybe too much of the familiar traits of the tale such as the animals going to the ark as well as the flooding.

Threlfall is a stern but kind hearted Noah who puts his love of the family first and he does well to be the centre of the film although I guess some viewers would find the northern accents rather off putting and accuse it of being a Shameless in the Desert which is rather unfair.

I liked the idea of it. Great cast. But I'm not sure why they did not stick to the original story.

It could have been so powerful.

I mean NOAH had three sons, not four.

In this TV movie there is a younger son Kenan.

Kenan in the Bible according to Genesis 5:9-14, is Kenan was a son of Enosh and a grandson of Seth.

However, I really enjoyed this version for what it was. Making them Northern was fantastic so relatable.

The fact that Noah had such faith to do as he was asked is amazing to me. It's such a great piece of our history. I am proud to believe it and have faith in the same God Noah had faith in. His story is mentioned in the New Testament as a warning to us today. Love it

All the acting was really good. Great casting.

The writers did not hold true to the Bible. So disappointed in what they did, and the movie is just not good.

Quote of the movie: "What can science do exactly, except marvel at 'G-d's' (THEOS!) work and document it?"

PROS

+ Focus on his family and not on dramatic special effects.

+ The movie is in many parts well made and pleasant to watch (if it would not include serious transgressions).

+ Very great actors.

NEUTRAL

o When Noah kicked around two thieves who wanted to steal from his son, we are at first surprised. But it could have indeed happened in OT times, when the rule was still an eye-for-an-eye. Nevertheless, it was not adequate to include this detail in the movie.

CONS

• The movie depicts the salvation of dozens of other people who just randomly came from far off some days or weeks before the rain, and are actually the first ones to walk into the ark while Noah's family stands on the side line at some distance to the ark. This is a horrible twisting of Scripture.

• The director either sympathizes with Islam or he actually made a movie which is not Christian, although most viewers take it as Christian movie. The inclusion of a fourth son of Noah into the movie cannot simply be an accident.

According to this movie, this fourth son was a habitual fornicator (at least every day "for several weeks") and was so badly trapped in his sin that he even punched his father Noah when the waters came, refused to go on the ark and died being left behind with his girlfriend.

When we investigate the name of this fourth son, we suddenly realize that only Islam includes a fourth son -and surprise- uses the exact same name.

• When the Angel of KYRIOS appears to Noah, he is not even afraid of him, as should be expected by numerous biblical examples. In the movie, they have a nice small talk ...

• Although the movie often provides a good balance including Noah's possible struggles with his family, it goes definitely too far in several aspects. The disrespect by his sons is certainly not something we could imagine to fit into the biblical account.

• Even worse, his wife calls him an idiot, which is definitely to be considered highly probklematic and far outside the creative license of a 'Christian' filmmaker. I quote: "Although you have clearly gone mad and you made the leap from farmer to idiot in one felt swoop, you are my idiot and I love you." No matter how charming she is in this quote, it crosses the red line by far.

• Noah's family is displayed as rather unbelievers, which would be a very, very sad testimony for the most pious family on earth at a given point. This element of the movie is therefore also heretical. No Christian would believe such a thing. They had their struggles after the flood, but this does not reflect pre-flood history.

• The ark displayed in the movie is way too small compared to the biblical specifications.

• Bad movie set. It is highly unlikely that Noah lived in such a setting, where no trees for the ark are seen far and wide. Maybe someone came up one day with the idea that it would be nice to contrast water with a previous desert in order to make it more dramatic, but does the biblical story really require such a dramatization? Is it not much more probable that Noah lived in an area with a vast vegetation?

• Noah's sons are seen watering their large field with hand buckets and hand-by-hand which is truly ridiculous. This is probably based on the extrabiblical myth that it did not rain until the flood. Some facts from my study 'Noah's Flood':

1. The consecration of the element 'rainbow' does not really say anything about the moment of its first appearance. We read too much into the Bible, when we assume that a rainbow appeared for the first time after the flood. THEOS connected it in this moment to a covenant (in the same way a dove did not come into existance at Christ's baptism), but this does not mean he created it in this moment.

2. The existence of springs or mist in the first days of creation does also not imply the absence of rain. Springs are still found today all over the world - active simultaneously with rain.

3. Noah would not have had any building materials for his ark if it would not have rained. He required hundreds of trees and we can hardly assume that he planted and manually watered those for decades, nor did THEOS indicate at any point to plant trees which require years or decades to grow to a size suitable for a gigantic ark.