A Arca de Noé

With all of the advertising, I thought this movie would be something that my child and I could watch and experience the glory of God on film, such as with "The Ten Commandments" and "Prince of Egypt". Yet, as I sat down and began to view this...... motion picture, I had to put my four-year old daughter in another room so I could prevent Peter Barnes and NBC from tearing down what God is building up.

I could not believe the way this film portrayed the historical first act of God's anger against mankind. The ONLY correct things in this..... motion picture was the name of the main character, and the kind of water vessel that was built. In the Word (the BIBLE), Noah's wife has no name, his sons are MARRIED to those women, it rained FORTY days (not one, and they lounged on a 'deck' for 39), there was no deck and no flag on the Ark, the water took FIVE MONTHS to recede, and there were NO other survivors but the eight people on the Ark. Oh, and by the way, Noah did not closed the door on the Ark - God did.

At the beginning of the movie, I believe there was a caption that said that the story was conformed to fit into todays' society. My God, this last day we live in needs the true and unadulterated Word of God more than ever before!! The devil himself was behind this project, and he used Peter Barnes to down-size a very pertinent part of end-time prophecy. In this film, it leads people to believe that God tolerates outright sin, and that is a lie. Shackers, alcoholics, murderers, and fornicators did not dwell on the ark, neither did INSANITY. It was also made to appear as if Noah's conscience was speaking in this film instead of the voice of God. The Creator of the Heavens and the Earth is NOT a punk, unlike His adversary.

So, the next time the decision is made to bring the Bible to the box office, please READ it first.

I know that many others have already complained about the Biblical inaccuracies in this movie, but I might as well add my two cents worth, too. :)

As the title of this review says, "Noah's Ark" is a great movie, but a pathetic retelling of Biblical history. Altho very dramatic and heavy (and quite entertaining), it completely shreds any amount of accuracy. For example...

1) Lot was a descendant of Noah's, not his best friend. They lived hundreds of years apart and never even saw each other.

2) It was Abraham who bargained with God to find 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, not Noah.

3) The movie also slaps the divine nature of the Bible in the face. The Bible clearly says that "All scripture is inspired by God", meaning that God wrote the Bible through mortal men. However, if you listen to Noah's wife Naamah, "You can't trust scribbling scribes. They change things. When they're done with the story, it will be as if you weren't even there." (loose quote) So first, we're supposed to believe that Noah and family witnessed the destruction of Sodom, and second, we're supposed to believe the Bible lies about it?

4) Shem, Ham, and Japheth took their WIVES on the Ark, not their GIRLFRIENDS.

5) Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, were the only survivors of the Flood. There were no peddlers or pirates.

6) God shut the door to the Ark, not Noah's sons.

7) There was only one window on the Ark, and the odds of them actually being able to move about on deck are slim to none.

8) I read nowhere that it says God assisted with the building of the Ark.

9) I also don't find anything about them going crazy or Noah's sons rebelling.

10) And can someone please show me book, chapter, and verse where God "had to decide" whether or not to drown the Ark?

11) Oh, yes, and God does NOT make mistakes. What is the purpose of having and omniscient being if he's going to make mistakes? This movie has God apologizing to Noah, but in actuality, God did what had to be done and what he KNEW had to be done.

12) And finally, God did not promise Noah that he would never destroy the Earth again, he promised he would never destroy the Earth by WATER again. It says later on in the Bible that when Christ returns to escort us to the Judgement Day, the world will be consumed with fire. So yes, the Earth WILL be destroyed a second time, just not in the same method.

There are many smaller discrepancies, but these are the major ones. I fully understand that some things would have to be "amended" for a film version of the Ark, such as giving first names to Noah's wife and his daughters-in-law, but this movie far exceeds any legitimate speculation. Like I said in the beginning, this is a good movie for someone who just wants to be entertained, but if you're looking for a vast store of Bible knowledge, look somewhere else.

I now know what eternity would be like. This incredible mess occupied four hours I will never get back. My kids wanted to watch it. They liked the animals. I am no Old Testament scholar, but the way the script played fast and loose with the details, was really disappointing. I'm sure all of us remember Lot! He's the guy who left the city of Sodom with his wife. She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. I never realized he kept her finger in a jar after that. I also didn't know that he later became a pirate and tried to board the ark. If Noah had gone up the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, I wouldn't have been surprised. You can imagine a screenwriter, trying to adapt about two Bible chapters into a four hour mini-series. Still, with imagination and effort, it could have worked. The characters are ridiculous. This has got to be the lowest that Mary Steenbergen has gone. Her character is a mawkish idiot, spouting 1960's June Cleaver dialogue. Noah, played by John Voight, is a buffoon, and then they have these three sons who shovel dung and complain. Except for Japhet, who is the artist. He sits around and ponders. One of them develops a ventriloquist act and talks to an orange for about an hour. The animals are superimposed using computer graphics but not very well. I know it is a mini-series, but visually it is awful.

Most of the film involves the Noah family sitting around being bored. There is this thing about not putting a rudder on the boat so they are floating around, as if they knew where they were going anyway. The Lord was my favorite. He had this silly conversational voice, somewhat indecisive and flippant, sort of like George Burns. The scene where the whole family goes temporarily insane is when I finally gave up. I am as open minded as the next person, but I'd like to hear some sort of justification for this mess. Was it entirely tongue in cheek? Did I miss the whole point because no-one was supposed to be serious. Oh, well, I am interested to see other comments about this thing.

This was on the children's shelf at our local video store. BIG mistake; there's enough violence in this to give an adult nightmares, let alone a child, and more sexual references than I'd care to explain to my innocent six year old. We did a lot of fast forwarding in the beginning.

That said, even as an adult movie, this is a completely unredeemable film. The script is stupid, and the story is so twisted and convoluted that it would hardly be recognizable as a Bible story at all if it weren't for the big boat and the pairs of animals. If they wanted to do a Sodom and Gomorrah movie (not that I think that would go over well in today's political climate, but I'd like to see it anyway), they could have done one, and not tried to throw that event (which was a good thousand years, at least, after Noah's Flood) in with the flood. The script is tasteless and stupid, the acting (especially by Mary Steenburgen) is wooden. Even the scene with the animals, which is prettily-enough done, isn't enough to make this a movie worth watching. Give this one a miss, and definitely DO NOT get it for your kids.

Funniest film I've seen in a long time (albeit unintentionally so). Loved the pirates chasing the ark - I expected eye-patches, peg-legs, parrots calling "Pieces of eight, pieces of eight", &c. Perhaps they were using an old Monty Python script.

Bad guys don't wear black hats in this film; instead they have rotten teeth.

I read an article by an extra (Jonathan Biggins) in "The Sydney Morning Herald" in which he said the cheetah (or some other "wild" cat) earned more on the shoot than he did. This says something for the production values of this film.

Yea and verily, my brothers and sisters, behold a Grade-One Turkey. Question is - is it SO bad that it will earn cult status?