Noah (PG-13)
10/04/14 22:23 Filed in: 2014
Starring: Russell Crowe
March 2014
This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!
Crowe and Connelly also portrayed a married couple in A Beautiful Mind (2001).
Not too worried about spoiling plot points for this one.
The intro is eye opening...never heard of the Watchers.
Noah is quite the humanitarian...looks out for white flowers and dragon dogs.
Just a guess, but his skill at taking care of animals might come in handy someday.
Noah encounters a Watcher. I wonder if it has any vulnerable spots?
Noah sings a lullaby. Guess Crowe didn’t want those singing lessons he took for Les Miserables to go to waste.
Not that they did much good, mind you. It’s a good thing all of the canines are sedated on the ark. Otherwise, the howling over Crowe’s singing would make our ears bleed.
A cup of tea with Methuselah. I hope the tea leaves aren’t as old as he is.
Yeah, yeah. My jokes are as stale as the tea.
Amazing time lapse montage.
But it’s used once again during story time with Noah. This occurrence should’ve been skipped in favor of the latter usage of the technique, which has more dramatic impact.
Watchers remind me of LOTRs Ents...right down to the lumbering gait and booming, gravelly voice.
You knew they’d be coming sometime...all manner of reptiles board the ark. Why did it have to be snakes?
Question: Wouldn’t the sedation incense also effect the humans?
Correction: affect. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
“The time for mercy is past.” Fortunately God didn’t feel the same way.
Total LOTR battle to repel the advancing throng.
The 5.1 quake hit right in the middle of this sequence…just added to the overall effect. Who needs IMAX?
Noah’s creation story is brilliantly visualized.
But looses its visual vitality due to the movie’s earlier instance of time lapse photography.
Final analysis: a beautifully crafted film, but a very strange take on the flood narrative.
The film fails as a faithful Biblical account but works extremely well as a fantasy epic.
Noah, a venerated man of faith, is characterized here as a misguided, manic Ahab.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4. Had higher hopes for this one. Can theological accuracy and art coexist? Remains to be seen.
Yes, the beginning of the film contains a warning that artistic license was taken with Aronofsky’s stylized rendition of the Biblical account of the global flood as told in the book of Genesis. Despite the disclaimer, does that give Aronofsky the right to forge the Biblical narrative into anything his fertile imagination conceives (I mean, introducing aliens into a film about Napoleon might seem less odd and would certainly be less controversial)? As if to remove all doubt as to how far the director will stray from the inspired source material, within minutes we’re introduced to the Watchers, which, presumably, are a variation of the Nephilim but with the potential to achieve eternal redemption (except for the one that cracks open its chest because that’s suicide, right?). With the Watchers, Aronofsky sets the tone and expectations for the film right out of the gate. You’ll either accept his fanciful riff on the story of Noah or you’ll outright reject the whole affair as high art heresy. Theological accuracy aside, the story starts floundering once the rain starts falling. Besides a needlessly protracted battle, filmed with all the visual verve of a LOTR movie, the subplot involving Ray Winstone’s devious antagonist is utterly daft. Those who’ve heard the Sunday school story will know that Noah and his family survive the deluge, so the outcome of the fight scene is a foregone conclusion. Consider this a failed attempt at generating dramatic intensity. As for the characterization of Noah as a type of tragic and tortured Ahab, there’s really no justification for it other than the fact that Aronofsky needed something to sustain viewer interest during the 40 days/nights part of the tale. There’s no doubt that Crowe pulls off the neurotic Noah but could conflict have been generated some other way so that the hero of our story stays somewhere this side of sane? Despite the many ways Aronofsky tampers with the original Biblical account, his biggest disservice to the film is his narrative choices, which consistently sideline God during key moments of the story. For instance, in our human minds it seems impossible that Noah and his family could’ve built the ark by themselves, so Aronofsky introduces the Watchers to make the task seem more feasible, effectively eliminating any supernatural agency from the equation. Also, from a man-centric perspective, it doesn’t seem probable that Noah and his family can feed and tend to all of the animals in the world for 40 full days, so Aronofsky devises a way to sedate the animals. If God could shut the mouths of hungry lions to preserve Daniel’s life, couldn’t God put all of the animals on the ark into a state of hibernation? Explaining away divine activity also occurs in subtle ways in the film, like when Noah’s sons raise the main door to seal up the ark. In the Bible, it’s God himself who shuts the door (Gen. 7:16). These instances, along with many others, reveal that the movie’s underlying problem isn’t the creative liberties taken with the story but rather the removal of the hand of providence from appearing in the movie’s broad strokes. I’m okay with whimsical story elements like the Watchers—I wasn’t alive during Noah’s time, so I can’t deny their existence—but I’m not okay with the excision of a divine agency from the heart of the story or human explanations given for miraculous events. After all, if you erase God from the story it kind of defeats the purpose, right? Bible scholars aver that 99% truth is still heresy. The many liberties taken here evince a story that’s deserving of such ignominious status. I had hoped that this movie would finally be the perfect marriage of an artistic, commercial film with a story that’s faithful to the original text. Unfortunately, this movie isn’t the consummation of those desires. Now all I’m left with is the sinking feeling that this movie was a missed opportunity of biblical proportions.