27/04/08
Noah's fArce -
Categories: This week I watched the single worst adaptation of anything I have ever seen. Regular readers may know I'm a fan of film, and religion, which makes me particularly interested in those lavish American star-studded biblical biopics. Richard Harris as Abraham. Charlton Heston as Moses. Yul Brynner as Aaron. Grace from Will & Grace as Mary Magdalene. I like 'em as I like any historical biopic, no matter how conjectural: The Other Boleyn Girl, Shakespeare In Love, Spartacus...
But Jon Voight as Noah is something to behold. I don't mind the odd liberty being taking to dramatise it. And I'm sure not everyone reading this will be familiar with the finer points of the Noah's Ark story. But I'm sure all of you most know that nowhere in the original text does it even hint that there are pirates...
That's right - the NBC version of Noah includes pirates. God wiped out everyone on the planet, apart from Noah, his family, all the animals, and, oh, the odd ragtag bunch of angry villagers who cobbled together a few planks to make something that floats.
It doesn't stop there. The original version has Noah welcome his wife (here played by Mary Steenburgen), his sons and their wives onto the ark. Only in this version, Noah piles on his wife, his sons, and then three random women. It's only during the course of ark's journey that the three sons get a bit rapey, and Noah intervenes and says, "Hey! You've got to get married first!"
You'd have thought God would be angered by this rapiness, but he's too busy playing with Noah's head by offering him mirages of dry land, then laughing when Noah realises it's just an illusion. Ha! The prankster God, so seldom seen in the Bible. Yet here he's also the impulsive God: at the end of NBC's 'Noah's Ark: Beyond The Thunderdome' (it might as well be), God decides that actually he's going to kill Noah, his family and all the animals after all. Noah begs God, but to no avail. So Noah starts whistling. It is a funny whistle. He even does a little dance with it (in Jon Voight's most demeaning screen appearance since - no, including Anaconda). God likes the whistle/dance combo, laughs, and lets Noah off.
What?! If that's what changes his mind, why has no one else done this since? When Hitler pulled out his gun in his bunker, did he pucker up, do a few bars of Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles, a little jig, and Bob's Your Uncle?
Oh, and Mrs Noah tries to kill all the animals she doesn't like. And they all go mad, like in Cast Away. They start chanting and wanting to sacrifice each other, and I wouldn't put it past them to have conversations with a football called Wilson. Then there's a peddler man, who like the pirates, somewhere survived the flood. He's played by James Coburn, and sells useful items, novelties, party tricks... Noah doesn't buy anything, which must nark the peddler a bit, because I can't imagine there are many boats around. Unless as well as Noah's Ark, there's also Jeff's Ark, Steve's Ark, etc, which I wouldn't put past 'em. That's NBC: Not Biblically Cohesive.
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