CineBad!!!

After staring open-mouthed at the TV screen for 2 and a half hours, I finally came to a conclusion as to why it was created. It was actually an insidious plot to get us to read the Bible. Why else would they take the story of Noah’s Ark and totally change it? It causes you to question every detail of the story. Well it worked. I read the Bible section devoted to Noah and his aforementioned boat, and I was amazed at exactly how short it was. I mean, the whole Noah episode takes up exactly 1 and 1/2 pages in my Bible (3 paragraphs in my illustrated children’s Bible). I guess that’s why the filmmakers felt the need to throw in a little Sodom & Gomorrah being destroyed, some townspeople rioting, and plenty of potty-humor.

Ah yes, the potty humor. Shem and Japheth (Noah’s sons) keep mentioning the poop. Who’s going to clean up all of the animals’ poop? Japheth even manages a nice, clean, made-for-TV “shhhhh…” as he slips on the animal poop. Hardy har har!

There’s lots of boozing and lust as well. Noah is quite the lush, always with his bottle of wine. But then, he was a bit of a boozer in the Bible, but not until after the whole ark episode. As for the lust, well…Noah’s sons and their fiancees (in the Bible they were actually married, but this makes for more lewd jokes) throw lots of innuendoes around. Ham is really intent on slipping Ruth, his intended, the sausage, for example! Shem’s girlfriend keeps mentioning how it would be nice to be naked. Another hearty har har har!

There is also the disaster element. In the beginning, Noah is actually a citizen of Gomorrah. God tells Noah of his destructive intentions, and proves it by making some stock footage of Mt. St. Helen’s explode. Noah must then lightly hop over streams of rapidly flowing computer animation, er, lava in order to get home. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed with another rain of computer animation fire balls from heaven. Even the rats catch on fire and neglect to stop, drop, and roll, as they run around with flaming fur (does PETA know about this?)

Also in the destructive vein, watch the Ark crash into Mt. Ararat with a loud, splintering bang. We watch with anticipation as the Crew of Noah’s Ark prepare to smash to their deaths in a Titanic-esque collision. Never mind the fact that giant animal-laden boats don’t generally drift around at high speeds, a disastrous crash was in order. All in all, this movie merits the highest cheese rating a film can possibly earn! It annoyed both movie connoisseurs and fundamentalist Christians! What more could you want? Oh yeah-you could want the salesman. The other survivor of the flood besides Noah & Co. was a traveling salesman on a funky homemade barge. This allowed Noah and family the opportunity to shop while floating through the sea of God’s destruction. See, God is benevolent after all! He wouldn’t deprive his favorite human of the opportunity to shop, even after He destroyed the greed and avarice-filled human race. Alert the philosophers!