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By Peter T. Chattaway
TWO YEARS ago, we had the PG-rated, family-friendly, sort-of-biblical comedy Evan Almighty.
While the movie was not directly based on the Bible, per se, it did take several
key elements from the Noah’s Ark story and set them in the present day.
But despite a massive budget and a lot of hype, it turned out to be a
disappointment, both as a comedy – the jokes were pretty mild – and at the box office.
Now we have Year One, a raunchy and relentlessly coarse send-up of the Book of Genesis that narrowly
avoided an R rating south of the border. And this film, produced by Judd Apatow
(Knocked Up) and directed by Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day), may, if anything, turn out to be an even bigger disappointment than the movie
that preceded it.
The film concerns two men, Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera), who are
expelled from a village of prehistoric hunter-gatherers when one of them breaks
‘the rules’ and plucks some fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, hoping the fruit will make
him smarter.
Zed and Oh soon run into Cain (David Cross) and his brother Abel (Paul Rudd),
and the ensuing conversation annoys Cain so much that he kills Abel right then
and there, in a scene that is meant to be funny but never quite gets past the
brutal violence.
Feeling guilty, Cain runs away from home and takes Zed and Oh with him. One
thing leads to another, and they all end up in Sodom – but not before Zed and Oh have had a chance to meet Abraham (Hank Azaria, who
seems to be riffing on George C. Scott’s Abraham from The Bible: In the Beginning) and his son Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
Along the way, people talk about God every now and then, but his role in the
story is rather diminished; indeed, where the Bible ascribes certain actions to
God, the film consistently ascribes them to regular people (except for one
lightning bolt, the timing of which may point to a higher cause). In addition,
the biblical characters we meet are typically made to look rather arrogant,
loony or both; note how Abraham is keen to circumcise everyone, including his
guests, but he tells them not to worry, he’ll serve refreshments afterwards.
By the time Zed gives a speech telling people that they can make their own
destiny, free of religious authority, it is clear that Ramis was trying to put
a bit of a message into his film, not unlike the message that came through in
Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
But the Pythons remembered to keep things funny even when they were
speechifying, and their humour was, even at its naughtiest, of a wittier sort.
Far too often, Year One is content to wallow in smutty humour or in cringe-inducing gross-out scenes for
their own sake. That makes this the most disappointing Bible-themed movie by a
major studio in decades.
• • •
Ben-Hur will ride his chariot again, in a two-part TV movie currently being filmed in
Morocco, Spain and Canada.
Joseph Morgan – no stranger to sword-and-sandals flicks, having previously had a small role in
Oliver Stone’s Alexander – will play the title character, while Stephen Campbell Moore will play his
treacherous former best friend Messala. Other actors cast in the film include
Vancouver native Kristen Kruek as Ben-Hur’s sister, Emily VanCamp as his girlfriend Esther, Ray Winstone as his adoptive
father, and Hugh Bonneville as Pontius Pilate.
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One of the producers is David Wyler, whose father William Wyler won an Oscar for
directing the epic Charlton Heston version of this story 50 years ago.
Ironically, despite being billed as a ‘mini-series,’ this new film will actually be shorter than the earlier version, once you
remove the commercial breaks.
No airdate has been set yet, but the mini-series will be shown on the ABC
network.
• • •
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is known for many things. Gory sci-fi movies like RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. Trashy oversexed thrillers like Basic Instinct and Showgirls. And trashy, gory, oversexed sci-fi thrillers like Hollow Man.
But despite his oft-stated desire to make a movie about the ‘historical Jesus’ (based on his work with the liberal Jesus Seminar), he’s not known for an interest in Christian fiction.
Nevertheless, that seems to be what he is doing, now. Various reports say
Verhoeven has signed on to develop and direct an adaptation of The Surrogate, a book by Christian novelist and screenwriter Kathryn Mackel; and the film
will be produced by Ralph Winter, who previously worked with Mackel on Left Behind and Hangman’s Curse.
The story concerns a couple who are desperate to have a child, but discover too
late that the woman they have hired to carry their baby is insane. Halle Berry,
who co-starred in the X-Men movies produced by Winter, is reportedly in talks to play the childless wife.
On a semi-related note, Winter, together with John Stackhouse, will be teaching
a course on ‘The Ethics of Filmmaking’ at Regent College July 27 - 31. They will also deliver a public lecture on ‘How to Watch a Movie’ on the evening of July 28.
– filmchatblog.blogspot.com
July 2009
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