Episode 205: The Book of Mormon Movie Review

This movie embodies everything wrong with LDS Mormonism: kitsch masquerading as culture.  And what makes the whole mess utterly unbearable is how seriously people try to take it.  You cannot watch this movie without laughing.  Laughter — self-mocking, loud, derisive laughter — is the magic ingredient missing from the church.

On a related note, Nephi really is a jerk.  I realized this early on in my disaffection (aided and abetted by my wife, who consistently brought his jerkiness to my attention, urging me not to follow his example when I try to win friends and influence people).  At some point, I realized that there are very few positive role models in the Book of Mormon: most of the characters are cartoons whose moral integrity is about as solid as their dialogue (“and then it came to pass that I did ramble on in the manner of run-on sentences for the space of several pages, and the people did weep, for the Spirit of the Lord came upon them in the midst of my ramblings, and then I did command them to do something obvious or something awful, in accordance with the will of the Lord”).  The famous Captain Moroni (to name one beloved hero omitted from the movie) is an incoherent fascist, throwing promises out and then forgetting them a few verses later (was Joseph tippling while he used the seer stone?), founding gangs of “freemen” to capture and enslave towns that refused to accept “liberty” (i.e. military dictatorship under his iron fist).  If you were going to make a compelling story out of the Book of Mormon, you would have to eviscerate it (kill the dialogue and replace it with something that makes sense).  I would be really tempted (now, as an apostate) to flip the whole thing on its head (the way Patrick suggested) and make the villains into heroes (all the way down: I would make Laman, Sherem, Nehor, Amlici, Zeezrom, and Korihor into good guys, or at least relatable characters).

That said, the best adaptation of the Book of Mormon (as is) that I have encountered thus far is the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.  Card changes the setting (of course), but he develops the characters in very interesting, dynamic ways (much better than Joseph Smith or whoever gave us the canonical Book of Mormon).  Nephi does learn a thing or two (and is still kind of a jerk), and the other brothers (especially Laman) are a lot more believable.  Oh, another thing: there are women in the story, and they aren’t stuck with mute roles.  They are actually very important to the plot.  Someone should make Card’s series into film: Peter Jackson could definitely turn it into something many people (including non-Mormons) would love to see.

Nice job. Good contrast in how “The Lord of the Rings” translates rather cleanly into an epic movie, but “The Book of Mormon” translates into a stinker. I liked the comments about the reviewer who was able to believe the story in book form, but not in a movie. (Can you say cognitive dissonance, boys and girls? I knew you could.) 

This movie changed my heart.  

So angels are all on xanax?