Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Work and the Glory

This is topic Work and the Glory - American Zion (2005) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 10-21-2005, 09:38 PM:

CINEMA: Century 20 at Jordan Creek, West Des Moines, IA
AUDITORIUM: 8
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Surrounds seemed to be low. Might have been the movie.
RATING: Two stars (out of four)

WARNING: Be Still My Spoilers

Cold Stone Creamery has brought "Cake Batter" back from the botulism scare. The national crisis is over. I'm just saying.

PREVIOUSLY ON "THE WORK AND THE GLORY"...Ben Steed moved his family to Palmyra, New York for land. Evangelists were all the rage but God was having none of it, instead opting to have Joseph Smith invent the Mormons. Matthew and Becca were constantly searching for eggs. Nathan and Joshua fought over a girl. Who will they fight over...TONIGHT?!?

Seriously. The did a "Previously on the Work and the Glory" intro. Just like a primetime soap.

For the uninitiated, here's the deal...LDS novelist Gerald Lund wrote a best-selling series of novels about a fictional family called the Steeds, and set them against the founding of what eventually was known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...the Mormons. The entire series starts near the founding of the Church in the 1820's and ends at Salt Lake City in the 1840's, where the members walked to from Illinois, building trails, bridges, and Marriott hotels along the way.

My personal hero Larry Miller (car dealer, Jazz owner, builder of the greatest multiplex ever, and fan of the "Work and the Glory" books) funded the first movie, then funded the second and third, which were shot together. He also formed his own distribution arm for the second and third movies because he can afford more prints than silly Excel. If these two do well, there's still five more books in this series.

This, by the way, is the second movie.

The first movie was something like a "Little House on the Prairie" love triangle. "American Zion" plays like Knots Landing, except Knots Landing covered its characters more completely. As an example, I give you Melissa Steed, who had little to do in the first movie but still managed to snare a good share of scenes. Here, she has an argument with Dad, says to a boy at a home rising "You're not a Mormon. What are you doing here?", is later in a scene with an unexplained ring on her finger, and Nathan mentions in passing towards the end that she's getting married. HUH?

That's how a lot of this movie plays as it covers the migration of the Church from New York to Ohio and Missouri. The Steeds are divided. Mom and Nathan are church members. I guess Melissa is...that was never resolved by the end of the first movie, but she sure seems to be into it now. Dad isn't, but he keeps hanging out with the flock and fighting on their side. Joshua keeps being self-destructive, but sure seems to run in powerful circles. Joseph's brother Hyrum is NOWEHERE to be found, and nobody cares.

There's lots of violence as the Church grows and foes get all uppity. Some of it left audience members sobbing...not so much because it was graphic, but because it involved founders of their religion.

Oh...There's no ending.

There's a teaser. It isn't really even a cliffhanger. It makes no sense at all.

Put more simply...The movie is 100 minutes. The book it is based on covers a SIX YEAR PERIOD of Steed and Church history.

You do the math.

So yes, I'm saying the movie may have been more engaging if it were LONGER.

As it stands, it just feels like a haphazardly put together soap opera.

Which, indeed, it is.

What IS here is beautifully shot, though the film occasionally shows its (low) budget. Sam Hennings has a standout performance as Ben Steed.

Members of the Church and fans of the books can easily fill in the blanks and will like this. But I pity the fool who sees this with no knowledge of the series or the religion it's set in.

[ 10-23-2005, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: Sam Graham ]

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 10-21-2005, 11:37 PM:

There are some really good movies to come from Mormon Cinema, such as God's Army and Brigham City.

I could never get into this series. Anything that is a series that doesn't have aliens or spaceships, just isn't a real series.

Ciao