Amazon.com video review:
From the people who created the made-for-TV special-effects extravaganzas
Merlin and Arabian Nights comes In the Beginning, the
story about the travels and travails of the tribe of Abraham (Martin
Landau). Set around the year 2000 B.C., the narrative opens with "Genesis 12,"
wherein the Lord has kicked Abraham and company out of their country to a
land of milk and honey to be named later. In order to keep up the morale of
his followers while on the road, Abraham gives a sermon that sums up God's
creation of the universe. By illustrating this sermon with stock footage
and special-effects shots, the producers are obviously making a connection
between sermons of old and popular entertainments of today. From there, the
twists and turns of the Old Testament are treated like a soap opera. Family
dramas take center stage, whether it's God testing Abraham by telling him
to kill his son in sacrifice, Joseph (famous for his amazing Technicolor
dream coat) gaining power in Egypt after being sold to slave traders by his
brothers, or one of the many other stories of brothers fighting (Cain and
Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, etc.). The events that have been visualized in
movies before (the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, to name but two)
pale in comparison to their earlier incarnations, but the bigger picture is
that In the Beginning works best as the Bible for beginners. --Andy Spletzer
