I also really wanted this movie to be good. I can excuse low budget, and cheesy acting, however the writing was just terrible. There is a plot, meaning things happen on screen, but the story is a big nothing burger.
It tried to introduce about a hundred deep ideas, and themes, but didn't bother to let them grow much between scenes. It truly suffers from the same issues as the infamous Star Wars Holiday special. No scenes really build off each other in a clear way, and there's nothing carrying the story forward. The characters are not working to achieve anything (which with this setting seems like an easy thing to accomplish)
Perhaps upon finding her, Moroni is tempted to use Bathsheba to get back at Aaron in some way for revenge (IDK have her help him sneak into the enemy camp) But at the last minute he remembers what his father taught him, and comes to his senses. Boom. There's a better story that I came up with just in the time it took to type it.
To me it felt like this was a rough draft, and either the writer didn't accept criticism, or surrounded himself with people that wouldn't give it honestly.
A good story has promises and payoffs. It makes choices about tone at the beginning of the film to teach the audience what to expect. I'll tell you that super cheesy PG violence for the first half of the film does not prepare you to see a dead fetus later on. Quite tone deaf. To pull that off, the beginning needs violence, and the other grit they put at the end of the film. Commit to a dark gritty take on The Book of Mormon, or don't. You can't try to do them both.
I understand the appeal to promote this, I am LDS, it would be awesome if there was a cool Book of Mormon film. But this simply was not it.
Also, why whenever, (and I mean WHENEVER even the same scene just at different angles,) the golden plates were on screen did they have the terrible Adobe After Effects gleam? I seriously laughed out loud every time it happened.
It tried to introduce about a hundred deep ideas, and themes, but didn't bother to let them grow much between scenes. It truly suffers from the same issues as the infamous Star Wars Holiday special. No scenes really build off each other in a clear way, and there's nothing carrying the story forward. The characters are not working to achieve anything (which with this setting seems like an easy thing to accomplish)
Perhaps upon finding her, Moroni is tempted to use Bathsheba to get back at Aaron in some way for revenge (IDK have her help him sneak into the enemy camp) But at the last minute he remembers what his father taught him, and comes to his senses. Boom. There's a better story that I came up with just in the time it took to type it.
To me it felt like this was a rough draft, and either the writer didn't accept criticism, or surrounded himself with people that wouldn't give it honestly.
A good story has promises and payoffs. It makes choices about tone at the beginning of the film to teach the audience what to expect. I'll tell you that super cheesy PG violence for the first half of the film does not prepare you to see a dead fetus later on. Quite tone deaf. To pull that off, the beginning needs violence, and the other grit they put at the end of the film. Commit to a dark gritty take on The Book of Mormon, or don't. You can't try to do them both.
I understand the appeal to promote this, I am LDS, it would be awesome if there was a cool Book of Mormon film. But this simply was not it.
Also, why whenever, (and I mean WHENEVER even the same scene just at different angles,) the golden plates were on screen did they have the terrible Adobe After Effects gleam? I seriously laughed out loud every time it happened.