As with so many of the Made for SciFi in Eastern Europe movies, this was mostly awful. Here's an example. The lead military dude was played by the ubiquitous Tommy "Tiny" Lister. Probably best known to scifi fans as the big mean black President in The Fifth Element. The "director" had him shouting every line. His rank was "Major", but his uniform bore no officer tabs. Instead he had sergeant stripes on one arm. At some point somebody was probably thinking "sergeant-major", a distinguished rank, but not an officer. If you call a sergeant-major "major" the least you will get is a pointed explanation that he is an enlisted man and works for a living, assuming you survive the experience.
This isn't nit-picky detail stuff, this is a big deal to anybody with any military knowledge.
In any case Tiny had to play the stereotypical brain-dead, kill everything, screaming military martinet that seems to be Hollywood's perception of soldiers. He is a good enough actor that he would not have been overacting so badly had he not been directed to do so.
But on to the movie. A small group of archaeologists discover a "dead sea scroll" containing the "unedited" book of Genesis. This version of the book contains the clues needed to find Noah's Ark. But it also warns that the ark contains a dark secret.
All of this is nothing but a setting for the REAL message. Turns out that the lead archaeologist used to married to the world's greatest scholar of biblical languages. So he seeks out his ex-wife to ask her to translate the scrolls. There we learn that he was falsely accused of an affair with a student, and the strain of that accusation broke up the marriage. It also exacerbated the religious rift between them. She is Christian, he is atheist/agnostic.
Well whaddya know, turns out the bible really is right, and there really is a demon in Noah's ark. They find the ark, accidentally let the demon go, and our hero begins to discover faith.
At one point he is trapped in a collapsing temple, prays to God, and is miraculously rescued. When it comes time to face the beast, armed with Noah's staff, only the truly faithful can have the job. Naturally everyone thinks he is the man for the job, even the leader of the secret society that has been guarding the secret of the ark since before the coming of Christ. (Noah happened first, if you will recall your bible studies ;-) So by the end, god sends a thunderbolt from the heavens to the top of Noah's staff, and the cheezy lightning bounces off of the staff and hits the beast. Eventually our hero has to push the beast into a flimsy wooden crate, where it will be trapped until some other poor schmo lets it out again. Amazing how a CGI monster that can shrug off a clean hit from a shoulder fired missile can be stopped dead in it's tracks by a wooden crate.
In any case, love is rekindled as faith is born and redemption achieved. The divorcees reunite to live happily, and faithfully, ever after.
Some of the scenes along the way are kind of fun. It's always great to see the nephilim invoked out of biblical texts. They make great bad guys. But most of the time this movie was just dumb. People just don't act the way all of the actors did in this movie. Even the CGI monster had problems. It just couldn't manage to kill any of the primary actors, even though it could chop up everyone else with a single might swing of a clawed arm.
There is usually some enjoyment to be found on SciFi's "most dangerous night of television", but this was one of the least worthy efforts. Too bad, there is a good movie to be made about an ark full of monsters that was launched at the same time as Noah's ark. Finding a whole ark full of demons with better writing, directing, and acting could have been a lot of fun.
Hairy
This isn't nit-picky detail stuff, this is a big deal to anybody with any military knowledge.
In any case Tiny had to play the stereotypical brain-dead, kill everything, screaming military martinet that seems to be Hollywood's perception of soldiers. He is a good enough actor that he would not have been overacting so badly had he not been directed to do so.
But on to the movie. A small group of archaeologists discover a "dead sea scroll" containing the "unedited" book of Genesis. This version of the book contains the clues needed to find Noah's Ark. But it also warns that the ark contains a dark secret.
All of this is nothing but a setting for the REAL message. Turns out that the lead archaeologist used to married to the world's greatest scholar of biblical languages. So he seeks out his ex-wife to ask her to translate the scrolls. There we learn that he was falsely accused of an affair with a student, and the strain of that accusation broke up the marriage. It also exacerbated the religious rift between them. She is Christian, he is atheist/agnostic.
Well whaddya know, turns out the bible really is right, and there really is a demon in Noah's ark. They find the ark, accidentally let the demon go, and our hero begins to discover faith.
At one point he is trapped in a collapsing temple, prays to God, and is miraculously rescued. When it comes time to face the beast, armed with Noah's staff, only the truly faithful can have the job. Naturally everyone thinks he is the man for the job, even the leader of the secret society that has been guarding the secret of the ark since before the coming of Christ. (Noah happened first, if you will recall your bible studies ;-) So by the end, god sends a thunderbolt from the heavens to the top of Noah's staff, and the cheezy lightning bounces off of the staff and hits the beast. Eventually our hero has to push the beast into a flimsy wooden crate, where it will be trapped until some other poor schmo lets it out again. Amazing how a CGI monster that can shrug off a clean hit from a shoulder fired missile can be stopped dead in it's tracks by a wooden crate.
In any case, love is rekindled as faith is born and redemption achieved. The divorcees reunite to live happily, and faithfully, ever after.
Some of the scenes along the way are kind of fun. It's always great to see the nephilim invoked out of biblical texts. They make great bad guys. But most of the time this movie was just dumb. People just don't act the way all of the actors did in this movie. Even the CGI monster had problems. It just couldn't manage to kill any of the primary actors, even though it could chop up everyone else with a single might swing of a clawed arm.
There is usually some enjoyment to be found on SciFi's "most dangerous night of television", but this was one of the least worthy efforts. Too bad, there is a good movie to be made about an ark full of monsters that was launched at the same time as Noah's ark. Finding a whole ark full of demons with better writing, directing, and acting could have been a lot of fun.
Hairy