I would like to prophesy that one day, many years down the road, when Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes back in all its glory, The Book of Mormon Movie will be one of the feature presentations. Is it really that bad, you ask? Yes, I solemnly reply. I’m afraid that it is.

An even bigger problem than its poorness, if there could be such a thing, is the nearly insulting level of its poorness. What I mean to say is – many films are poor because of their low budget and short time to work with. I can understand that. Other films are poor because of the lack of talent and skill on the part of the cast and crew. This is less acceptable, but also understandable.

Certainly these two issues, budget and experience, are a major part of the problem with The Book of Mormon Movie. But there is another problem with the quality of the movie, one that seems to transcend the limitations of budget and skill. And for this problem I can think of no other cause than that the filmmakers are intentionally cutting corners and doing sloppy work because they think there is a certain guaranteed audience.

I hate to assume this, but there are just too many problems that have no other explanation other than sloppy filmmaking. For example, the opening credits, despite the relatively cool opening background shots of the land surrounding Jerusalem, feel like something from a 60's B-movie. The editing is frequently bad, which adds greatly to the unprofessional feel of the film. There’s a lot of bad acting, which isn’t helped at all with a lot of really bad dialogue. This kind of dialogue might have worked in an animated version of the story, but it doesn’t work here. Then there are the costumes that look like they’ve been stolen from someone’s high school play. And what the heck is that on Lehi’s head? Are those the prop lady’s bed sheets? When we think it could get no worse, it does – the characters age. It looks like someone got some grey spray paint from Walmart, spackled some beards and hair, and figured that was good enough.

Other things are simply embarrassing. There’s a scene on the ship to America wherein Laman and Lamuel and their wives “were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness,” according to The Book of Mormon. In the movie this “exceeding rudeness” constitutes of Laman and Lemuel’s wives dancing for their husbands, while exposing their stomachs. Sariah gets upset with them for their immodesty, despite the fact that Nephi and others have been running around shirtless, and despite the fact that they really are out in the middle of nowhere, amongst no one but family, and probably only have tatters of clothes anyways.

The problems and questions go on. Like, why would a large group of people, who have large spaces of land to roam about on, always choose to hang out completely within the same screen shot? Is it really necessary to so frequently be making sure that the entire family is in the shot? Oh, there's more, much more. There are honestly enough comments and jibes to fill an entire episode of MST 3000.

To add to the poor production level, the story doesn’t work on a narrative level either. It plods through The Book of Mormon, chapter by chapter, sometimes verse by verse. It adds some things to help the story flow, but never creates a plot of any real sort. There’s no thematic progression, no progress in characters; just a close reenactment of the text. Now, that’s fun of a certain level. It’s enjoyable, to a certain extent, to see the reenactment and interpretation of words, if you’ve read them many times before. But it doesn’t hold as well on the level of a short story.

The basic story we do get tells us about Lehi (Bryce Chamberlain), his wife Sariah (Jan Gardner), and their sons, Laman (Mark Gollaher), Lemuel (Cragun Foulger), Sam (Kirby Heybourne) and Nephi (Noah Danby). The family leaves Jerusalem around 600 B.C. when Lehi receives a warning that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. They are eventually joined by the family of Ishmael (Rod Frederickson), whose children provide spouses for Lehi’s children, including a wife (Jacque Grey) for Nephi. Laman, Lemual, and the sons of Ishmael frequently contend with Lehi and Nephi and the family deals with dissensions as it makes its way through the wilderness to the sea and eventually on to the American continent.

I suppose I should say something nice before finishing. I really liked the handful of times – such as the appearance of Moroni to Joseph and the appearance of Christ in the Americas – that the visual picture matched popular paintings of the events. Maybe these scenes were done this way because the filmmakers thought that they would be less acceptable in another format. In any case, I appreciate the nod.

I like the idea of a movie based on The Book of Mormon. There’s a lot of good things that such a film could say – and I hope that future adaptations will say such things. I hope that other filmmakers continue to use The Book of Mormon as source for film concepts. I think it could be really powerful if done well. In the mean time, I suppose we just have to remember that Hamlet has been filmed over 100 times; and I’m willing to bet the first few were pretty bad.