Bruce Lee Movie:

The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1: The Journey Reviews:
Hay! Whatcha expect? Battlestar Galactica?
2008-01-20 - I have thousands of movies and even bought a few hundred movies myself.
I Love to watch 'em;-)

I have all kinds. Cartoons, Slice and Dice, Westerns, Science Fiction of all sorts.
I am not very good at writing reviews but I know what I like and I can spot a fumbling mess a mile away and this movie is not one.

This movie will stand up to anything "Cloud Nine" has to offer if ya just put away your prejudices.

Scripturely accurate? Hay folks, It's a MOVIE!


A non-Mormon take on the film
2006-09-03 - My wife and I are about as secular-minded and far from Mormon as you can get (we've never lived in an area where Mormonism is prevalent or even common), but she's something of an amateur religion scholar and so we rented this movie out of curiosity. Our expectations were rock-bottom - there's some pretty bad and amateurish religious cinema out there. We were pleasantly surprised that the film is entirely watchable - not something I would have picked up on my own, but not the kind of thing such that were I forced to watch it I would need to claw my eyes out. The storm-tossed boat sequence looked competently-done. The dream-sequence part where Nephi collapsed in the desert was actually quite good. On the negative side, the quality of the acting varied considerably among the actors - the guy who played Laman did a much better job in my opinion than the guy who played Lemuel. The parts with angel visions also looked kind of cheesy.

I can't imagine this movie making the story of the Book of Mormon look any more plausible to people not already convinced or inclined to join the LDS church. If the director or producers expected hordes of people to grab the nearest copy of the Book of Mormon they could find after watching this, they'll be disappointed. Nor is this on the level of Cecil B. De Mille's classic historical and biblical epics - an excessively ambitious order to fill on what I've read was just $2 million. It's not even close. However, I wasn't embarrassed for the Mormon community when I watched this and there's a certain heartwarming sincerity about the film that Hollywood doesn't easily duplicate.

I've heard that Mormons generally don't like this movie. They may be equipped to notice certain doctrinal/technical/cultural flaws that I'm not. But I can tell them that if non-Mormons are not favorably disposed toward their religion, it won't be because of this movie (assuming they've seen it). Take heart in the fact that religious movies can be, and frequently are worse. A lot worse.

Great movie
2004-12-01 - Really liked it. Took Book of Mormon stories into a real movie that enabled the audienece o relate to the characters and find them exciting

Are you kidding?
2004-05-19 - I understand this was not a big budget movie, and that there were no hollywood actors to be found, but seriously folks, this was one of the WORST movies that I have ever seen. The angel Moroni looked like he was played by the bishop. He had a clean cut haircut. A CLEAN CUT angel. He looked as if he had a three piece suit underneath is angel clothes. Even Jesus is portrayed as somewhat of a hippie.
The acting was amatuerish at best. The dialog couldn't decide if it were biblical or ebonics. "I believe thee when thou says I am an idiot fool". And Lehi is portrayed as a senile old man. His portrayel reminds me of Ted Baxter. This mess of a movie is worse than a junior high school play. Don't bother with it. If you are interested in the Book of Mormon, read the book. It's sad really, because if Hollywood were to get behind this story and really make an effort to bring it to life on the screen, it would be an amazing film. It is such a wonderful story, whether you belive it or not, it could make a great film. But this is not it.

Read the book . . . skip the movie
2004-05-17 - There is no redeeming value to this movie. It is a low-budget attempt to tell the story of a book of scripture that lies at the heart of the LDS faith. It would take 100s of millions of dollars to pull of a production of sufficient quality and excellence to even begin to do justice to the magnitude and scope of the Book of Mormon. I would be surprised if the budget for this movie topped even $1 million. The bottom-line is that this movie should not have been done. The script and the acting are awful to the point of being comic. The sets and costuming are stunningly sterile and unreal. If you are LDS and need a movie to keep your kids quiet on a Sunday afternoon, order the Book of Mormon reader video from the distribution center and call it good. If any of the production staff for this movie are reading this I beg of you to shelve future promised volumes of the movie. Take your money and donate it to the perpetual education fund or LDS charities rather than waste it on future productions of the Book of Mormon. The world will be a better place if you do.