Product Details

• Actors: Noah Danby, Bryce Chamberlain, Mark Gollaher, Jan Broberg Felt, Cragun Foulger
• Directors: Gary Rogers
• Format: Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Halestone
• DVD Release Date: January 1, 2003
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002ER5VQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,612 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

The Book of Mormon Movie is the incredible true story of Nephi and his family as they leave the city of Jerusalem in 600 BC, cross the Arabian desert, build a ship and sail to the "Promised Land" in the Americas. Nephi's journey is full of danger, mystery, intrigue and romance.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Non-LDS take on the Book of Mormon Movie, May 20, 2006

By 

TOMMY C ELLIS "Prison Rev." (Federal Way, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book Of Mormon Volume I The Journey (DVD)

I did like this movie. My purpose in watching it was to get a general outline--or at least a feel--for what the Book of Mormon contains. Additionally, in fairness, the movie should be compared with other movies produced by religious houses, such as Ten Clouds (Left Behind I, II, & III, etc.). In this light, the film fairs well. The acting is reasonably believable, though occasionally modern dialogue slips into this historic drama. The effects, while probably subpar by Hollywood standards, are high-medium for religious films. OK, the scene where Nehi "shocks" his brothers was pretty feeble!

The plot is the key here. While the target audience would certainly be primarily Mormon, the LDS church surely hopes that some non-members will see the film and become curious. In that vein, the film does a decent job of presenting a story that very few actually know. In doing so, the story feels very much like one that might have been done about Joseph, or the 10 Commandments, etc. In fact, some of the parallels were clearly intentionally. This story is meant to feel like a biblical epic.

I was surprised to learn that the movie came out in 2002. Nearly five years, and still no part II? Like Left Behind, future episodes are likely to be direct-to-dvd. The big let down for fans who like this series, is that there seems to be a distinct possiblitity it will not see its way to completion.

Bottom-line: Three stars for a religious movie that compares favorably with others in the genre, and succeeds in creating the feel of a biblical epic. Detractions are occasional uneven scenes, and the possiblity, even likelihood, that this series will not be completed.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Try, June 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Book Of Mormon Volume I The Journey (DVD)

Good things: Accurate to the Book of Mormon, felt the Spirit at points, good introduction to the B.o.M. for kids and investigators, good musical score, some really good camera shots. The movie provides good "fill in the gaps" for the in-between events and dialogue that the Book of Mormon leaves out. This movie is close to how I picture things in my mind when I read the Book of Mormon.

Not so good things: The dialogue is cheesey at points, low production values, you often feel like you're watching amateur actors from a local community theater, only Laban (Michael Flynn) had any real "screen presence", some scenes sorely needed more background music, some camera shots were badly staged. Like any movie that is made from a book, it doesn't quite live up to _all_ the things you picture in your mind as you read. Some fellow viewers didn't like it because it didn't correspond to their mental picture of the Book of Mormon.

Given the low budget ($1.5 million), they did a great job with what they had to work with.

The movie covers the time period of 1st and 2nd Nephi from the Book of Mormon. I hope they continue to make more installments.

If you love the Book of Mormon, then I think you'll want to have this movie in your collection. The message and lessons it gives outweigh the low production values.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A non-Mormon take on the film, September 3, 2006

By 

Eric J. Goodemote "Rhesusman" (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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.