Product Details

• Actors: Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen, F. Murray Abraham, Carol Kane, Mark Bazeley
• Directors: John Irvin
• Writers: Peter Barnes
• Producers: Robert Halmi Sr., Stephen Jones
• Format: PAL
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Run Time: 178 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (123 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004S8HY

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Another in Robert Salmi's march of modern TV classics, Noah's Ark brings the ultimate disaster story to the small screen with impressive effects and handsome production design. "Liberties were taken for dramatic purposes," warns the opening credits and, to be sure, this shouldn't be taken as gospel (pardon the pun). Noah (Jon Voight), the last good man on Earth, is spared from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and chosen to build an ark to save his family and the creatures of the Earth from a cleansing flood. Like a bad penny, his best friend, Lot (F. Murray Abraham), a decadent hedonist turned brigand, keeps turning up in the most unlikely places, including a postapocalyptic sea battle that owes more to Waterworld than the Old Testament. It's an entertaining if episodic story led by an appropriately humble Voight, with Mary Steenburgen as his whiny wife (she musters a surprising amount of dignity for the part) and James Coburn as a jolly peddler. Jim Henson's Creature Shop fills up the floating zoo with a charming array of animals. It never compels as Salmi's previous telefilm epics, notably The Odyssey and Merlin, but liberal amounts of deadpan anachronistic humor (Lot and his wife, played by Carol Kane, come across as nothing less than comic-strip couple the Bickersons come to life) and spectacular scenes of destruction keep the film aloft through its lengthy running time. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Let's Rewrite the Bible, July 14, 2004

By 

Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Noah's Ark (DVD)

NBC created a two-part epic of the story of Noah's Ark. It was created by the team that did Merlin and Alice in Wonderland but will probably be remembered as being by the same people who did The Tempest. It was really bad.

Just how bad the show was can probably be summed up by saying that in one scene Noah greeted Lot. For those a little rusty on their Old Testament, Noah can be found in Genesis chapter 6 while Lot is Genesis chapter 19. This epic opened with the tale of Lot (minus Abraham) and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (also minus Abraham).

One thing that really puzzled me about this production was the way the locals kept treating Noah as if he were a fool. This puzzles me because the locals all knew that Noah had the only farm in the land where anything would grow. So would frustrated and hungry farmers merely laugh at Noah or would they hate him and raid his farm? I was also amused when some of the locals began quoting Shakespeare. At another point a Michael Palin look-alike runs up dressed in rags and with a long scraggly beard and says, "Its." A brief moment of humor for Monty Python fans but I don't know why it was in there.

But the writers of Noah's Ark did take from one good source, mainly the Broadway musical Two by Two starring Danny Kaye. Unfortunately the stolen scene was one of Noah's sons claiming the Ark was not finished because it did not have a rudder. Now if he were right and the Ark needed a rudder then God made a mistake. But it would also meant that Noah's son would have to be strong enough to operate a rudder on a boat three-hundred cubits in length. But the ark was built by God and not Noah. The writers also kept pushing the idea that an ark is a boat. No, but Noah's Ark took the form of a boat. An ark is simply a sacred container for the safe storage of something precious. Any fan of Indiana Jones knows that (or did he dig up a boat in Tannis?).

This production is available on video and DVD and my recommendation is that it should be avoided.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Noah's Ark, September 4, 2001

By 

Art Yelchibekov (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Noah's Ark (DVD)

This is very bad and clumsy movie. I was absolutely shocked
by this irresponsible work to make Biblical movie.
It seems that producer deliberately made up everything, to show
that Bible for him is just a book of fairy tales.
To be short I'd like to say, that this movie doesn't not deserve
to be watched.

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars YET ANOTHER TITLE FOR "BAD MOVIE NIGHT", January 13, 2000

By 

Claude Bouchard Jr. "Eurodancemix" (Frederick, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Noah's Ark (DVD)

Religiously, this movie is so way off-base that your jaw will drop in disbelief at what goes on within the script (such as God abandoning Noah during the flood because He needs time to "think" about the fate of the human race, or admitting to Noah that He sometimes makes mistakes, too). But, hey, the movie's been made and the damage is already done. As a putrid piece of celluloid fluff, this one ranks up there with other bad movies like "Can't Stop The Music" and "Xanadu". It's perfect for Bad Movie Night, if you're into that sort of thing. The plot line is flimsy, the special effects are cheap, and the acting is bad. The movie did elicit a few chuckles, but I don't think that was the producers' intention. Some scenes are downright ludicrous, such as when Noah and his wife try to find one good person in Sodom. They settle on Lot who, although he participated in a drunken feast and orgy earlier in the movie (offscreen, thankfully), is chosen ONLY because he's Noah's best friend. This is how they pick people to be saved from the wrath of God! Or when Noah gets help from God after complaining that he'll never get the Ark finished in time for the flood; he wakes up with what looks like the lumber yard at Home Depot (didn't know they had 2X4's in those days?...you do now!). Or why Noah and his wife have American accents, while their three sons have British accents, which they still have well into their early 20's! The inaccuracies go on and on. One thing that must be mentioned is that this is a heavily edited version of the original that appeared on TV: gone are the flood-surviving fireball-throwing pirates (fireballs in a wooden ship, go figure!), the anti-pre-marital sex gorilla, the obnoxiously stupid talking puppet made from an orange, and the hysterically yet unintentionally funny pooping koala blooper scene. So what's left is a story that rushes through everything and gets nothing accomplished.