THC's Wretched "The Bible"

What a dreadful, awful thing this is. I couldn't believe the amount of money spent on this. It was produced by Surivor creator Mark Burnett and his wife, the wretched Roma Downey who plays (terribly) her dream role: Mary the Mother of Jesus. The entire thing is hunk of junk.

Oddly enough it begins with Noah and his family in their enormous, but awfully leaky ark, filled to capacity with lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), as the wizened old geezer recites the creation story as they violently toss and turn in this ship of fools. Perhaps in an effort to not to upset "non-believers" the entirety of Creation is passed over in roughly 90 seconds, including the creation of Adam and Eve, their downfall, and Cain killing Able. It makes a Reader's Digest condensed book feel like Proust or Joyce. And, to quote the Carpenter siblings, "we've only just begun."

The entire cast appears to have been culled from the British Isles, even though this is an American made production. The accents are not uniform and appear to have been gathered from all over England's realm. Moses, for instance, has such a heavy Scottish brogue he could replace Groundskeeper Willie from "The Simpsons." The children, every one of them towheaded or sandy haired moppets and each sounding like a reject from a casting call for the "Oliver." I'm not kidding. This became noticeably glaring as Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac, and the lad asks, "Fatha, Oye see the sticks, but whaz thee lamb?" He might as well have said, "'Owdy govnuh, cheerio 'n all that, innit?"

Not to bring racism into the multiple issues I had with this, but the producers found a way to make my blood boil even further. I found it almost comically offensive how the principal "good" characters, e.g., Noah, Moses, Abraham, Miriam, et. al, are cast by very (very) white, actors with fair hair to match, while the only characters who remotely resemble the people of the region these stories occurred, are the bad guys, including Pharaoh, Hagar (with tattooed face) and Lot's wife. Don't get me started on what a miserable shrew they make her out to be).

Jesus makes an early appearance to warn about Sodom's upcoming destruction, and what an entrance the Lord and Savior makes in this film. This Jesus is a blonde, bad-ass who shows up with a pair of shit-kicking warrior angels, one Chinese the other African adding some serious Ninja-like violence to the story, which seems to have suddenly been crafted, at least for a few minutes, from a graphic novel.

In the long and pivotal role of Moses, they've cast an actor who is so absolutely, remarkably, unbelievably horrible his name is not in the credits and nowhere to be found on the internet. Not even IMDB lists him as part of the cast. Moses. Really? You went with this guy?

The script is abysmal and in no consistent style, veering off from a faux Shakespearean mess into some amalgamated wreck of "ancient speak" with modern English. There is also a heavy predisposition for everyone to over pronounce names like Aaron, and Isaac with an odd mingling of French and Middle Eastern accents. Weird? You betcha.

On the "plus" side, the settings look great, with, apparently, no expense being spared. The violence, of which there is plenty,, may not be right on the money but appropriately bloody, horrific and, in the case of ancient Egypt, continual. In fact, in Egypt I was left wondering how anything got done by these poor, half-starved, emaciated slaves who were being whipped not only nonstop but in some instances, literally to death,

It really is a dreadful, awful thing, but it did have me laughing in disbelief throughout. That's probably not what they were going for, but it counts for something. That's entertainment!