Savage Journey
- Css Darth-Sheol
- Apr 27, 2015
- 3 min read
Savage Journey is a movie that chronicles the beginnings of the Mormon church. It starts with Joseph Smith having his questions about God and follows the movement to Utah. Let me go on record to say that I know nothing about the history of the church outside of what I read in a Sherlock Holmes story (“A Study in Scarlet” I think was the title of that one) so I have absolutely no idea how faithful and fair this is to the truth.
It plays out like a drama sometimes and like a documentary at other times. It's kind of like the <i> Jesus </i> movie that came out a while back though not done as well. Yes, I am biased and have more interest in first century history than the Old West era (which is when the Mormon church began), but just from the production values this still isn't as good.
In fact, it's not very good at all. I like education so I might have been able to get interested in this somewhat just for the knowledge it would give (taking it with a grain of salt since it is just a movie, of course), but I couldn't get past the problems. The acting is weak, the pacing is slow, the scenes feel choppy, and that doesn't take into consideration the weak A/V (which I'll detail in the buying guide).
The movie seems to suggest that local townsfolk were willing to mass murder the Mormons in cold blood – including old women and children – for no other reason than because they disliked alcohol and tobacco. I know people can be cruel to each other for stupid reasons but I find that a hard justification to swallow. My guess is that either the movie plays this up for cinematic effect (noooo, Hollywood would NEVER do that!) or it just does a bad job of spelling out the true motivations of the antagonists.
The only actor that does a half decent job is Charles Moll as Joseph Smith. What I found amusing was watching him search for God after having just watched a movie in which he denounced the existence of God.
Anyway, we watch his search for God and see a little of his spiritual journey. We see the beginnings of polygamy and the church members struggling to accept the concept. We later get an uncontested defense of the idea of polygamy as Brigham Young justifies it in an interview. We don't really find out where the origins of the idea came from, though, except for some comments that King Solomon and others had multiple wives.
MORALITY:
There is no strong language, sex, or nudity in this. The violence is mild, but a lot of people do get shot including little kids.
SPIRITUALITY:
I'm not going to debate here whether or not Mormons are true Christians although I suspect many of my readers have strong opinions on the matter. Agree or disagree with them the movie does center around Smith's spiritual journey.
The movie doesn't really get into the finer points of the theology like whether or not they truly believe that Satan and Jesus are brothers. You're not going to come away with a deep understanding of their beliefs from this, only a bit about their history. The one point of direct contention is the issue of polygamy. I'm not sure that this is a currently held belief of the Mormon church, but it is presented here as a defensible position which will not be appreciated by the average Christian.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
If you have a specific interest in Mormon history maybe you'll find yourself more willing to deal with the inadequacies of this film to enjoy it. That doesn't describe me, and the movie itself wasn't made well enough to overcome my disinterest.
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