MovieChat Forums > The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1: The Journey (2004) Discussion > The Worst Religious Film Ever Made

The Worst Religious Film Ever Made

posted 18 years ago by james676
11 replies | jump to latest

My views here are in NO way whatsoever meant to mock the Mormon faith. I respect everyone's religious beliefs. I rented this film out of interest, to understand this faith, from their point of view. I do not have any interest in becoming a Mormon, but that's my business.
I was very disappointed in the quality of this film. I think the Mormon Church shot themselves in the foot with such poor quality, a terrible script, mediocre acting. They didn't even RESEARCH life and customs of 600 B.C. that is a major issue. I have a feeling that they made this film for the 12 million members of the LDS. Unfortunately, to non-Mormons seeing this film, it's just a mock-fest. I always believed the Mormon church was very wealthy. I'm sure they could have spent more on locations, costumes, realistic wigs and beards, actors who look like they came from Jerusalem, a much better script. That would have helped their mission. I don't want to open a can of worms, but I know I probably will, but the sons only had one wife. I'm curious where the polygamy arose.

[–] SotaJerk 18 years ago

I think the Mormon Church shot themselves in the foot with such poor quality, a terrible script, mediocre acting.

Actually, it was a couple amatuer film makers that shot the mormon church in the foot. The Mormon church had nothing to do with it. I doubt any film could do the story justice...

[–] ballet_man 18 years ago

As I've said before, this movie was indeed a flying load of crap. And in case you missed the disclaimer at the begining of the movie (which should have been repeated with narration every 15 minutes in case people forgot) the making of the Book of Mormon movie was in no way affiliated with the LDS church.

The Church itself has a motion picture studio in Provo Utah and has turned out a number of quality short films depicting scenes from the scriptures. If you want a better look, check out "The Lamb of God", a short film depicting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As for the Polygamy issue, plural marriage wasn't practiced by the people of the Book of Mormon. However, from the 1830's till about 1880, plural marraige was practiced in the LDS church. If you want the reasons for that, the IMDB isn't necessarily the best place to look for accurate information.

Getting back on topic though, excellent observation about how aweful the movie was. I actually laughed my head off the whole way through.

[–] nephihaha 11 years ago

I mentioned Battlefield Earth but there are others. I've seen some bad Christian films by other churches. The clips are on Youtube.

Also a dishonorable mention for What the Bleep do We Know? A dodgy cult film posing as a science documentary.
---
It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] dp922066 18 years ago

i gotta agree. im lds and i thought the movie was so stupid. it was the worst acting ever

[–] Xylrith_the_Unknown 18 years ago

I agree this movie should never have been made. Also has anyone noticed that someone is letting them make a sequel? This is going to set the mormom church back 50 years and they aren't even the ones making the movies.

[–] Anibas 17 years ago

James, this film was not made under the aegis of the mormon church. Gary Rogers ( a mormon) did this on his own and it was done primarily for the mormon membership who, by the comments at the BOM website just sucked it up as the best film EVER!

Check out the feedback at http://www.bookofmormonmovie.com/flash/feedback.html . You will not find a bit of criticism of this *beep* movie. Talk about cherry picking your critics....

The mormon church is too cowardly to produce a Book of Mormon film even though they have VAST wealth to do so as you so aptly observed. But, after seeing the debacle made by Gary Rogers, maybe they should have! LOL!

I especially loved the actor early in the movie using the phrase "OK"... Maybe the use of this anachronism should not bother the mormon movie maker since the Book of Mormon is loaded with anachronisms (things that were not present in the americas when Joe Smith made up the Book of Mormon): horses, barley, wheat, gold, sheep, that American Indians are actually Jews, etc. Whoops!

www.exmormon.org

[–] nephihaha 14 years ago

Actually Battlefield Earth is much worse.

[–] james676 14 years ago

What if Gary Rogers made a film for the Scientology Church? That would really stink!

[–] Miguelus_Maximus 13 years ago

How is saying "OK" an anachronism? If that were so, ALL the words they say would be anachronisms, since none of them existed back then and the same would go with every film set in ancient times where the characters were speaking English!

People don't like words liked "OK" because it's a slang and just sounds wrong in an anceient setting where they think no slang existed.

[–] nephihaha 13 years ago

They wouldn't have been speaking English either, so that's anachronistic. Maybe it should have all been done in the original language, like Mel Gibson's recent efforts about Mayans and Jesus.

---
It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] Anibas 10 years ago

Sure, maybe the BOM movie should have been in the original language but would it have been Hebrew? or Reformed Egyptian? LOL!!!!!