Noah Review

Noah has been on my radar for a while. Darren Aronofsky is a very talented director, and I was fairly excited to see what he was going to cinematically do with this story. That being said, I was also a little nervous. Hollywood has been known to, for lack of a better term, "Hollywood-ize" classic stories such as Noah's ark. I was hoping for an accurate adaption of the story from Genesis that still featured Aronofsky's typical directorial flare and skillful storytelling. Then, the last trailer for the film struck, and I saw the disclaimer at the end that basically made sure that Christians and believers in the Bible can't get mad at any artistic license the makers have made. That's when I knew there was very little chance that the final product was going to be what I was hoping for.

I'm not even going to begin this review by summarizing the story of Noah's ark. Everyone has heard it before. I will just state my general problems with this movie before I delve a bit deeper into my thoughts. I respect the makers' right to take some artistic license when telling this story in order to appeal to a wide range of audiences. At the same time, there comes a point when taking a vast number of liberties in your telling of the story takes away from the integrity of the project as a whole. You are no longer telling the story from the Bible, but are now fabricating your own story which just has the basic facets of the original story. Aronofsky took a bit too many liberties for my taste, and that ultimately was what prevented me from fully respecting, or enjoying, the film Noah.

Noah is portrayed by Russell Crowe, who has always been one of my personal favorite actors. He was, in my opinion, the best part about this movie. I mean, come on...it's Russell Crowe. He's just awesome. The film also stars Jennifer Connelley as Noah's wife, Naameh, Ray Winstone as Tubal-cain, and Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah, Noah's grandfather. They all do a very good job, as would be expected from such an illustrious cast. Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Douglas Booth star as Noah and Naameh's children (though Watson's character is not their offspring. She is an orphan that Noah and Naameh adopt toward the beginning of the movie - her character is almost completely invented for the film). I was actually impressed by Watson and Lerman's maturity in their performances, as they typically play youth in films adapted from Young Adult novels.

For about the first half and some change, this movie was great. This part of Noah is basically everything you've seen in the trailer already, and it's what I wanted more of in the film itself. It involves Noah's initial receiving of the visions from God that state he must build an ark to survive the imminent flood that will wipe out humanity. Then, he and his family with the help of The Watchers, who were created for this movie, construct the massive ark. There is also some exploration of the relationships between Noah and his children that I thought was rather effective. Up to this point, there were some liberties taken, but not enough to deter my liking the movie. Once the ark is built, though, my opinion of the film significantly - and steadily - declined.

I had no problem with the general idea that there were people who wanted to board the ark once the rain began to come down. That seems pretty logical in all honesty. However, Noah portrays the people of Earth as warriors of some sort that plot to overthrow Noah and his family and the ark. This never happened in the Bible. In fact, the Bible states that the people mocked Noah. They didn't believe that God would destroy the world. Furthermore, I was very surprised to see Tubal-cain depicted as an outright villain. Not only was he not such an evil person, he wasn't even said to be alive during the flood in the Bible, and he certainly never boarded and hid on the ark as he does in the movie. The whole portion where the people are attempting to take the ark devolved into a conventional swords-and-sandals battle sequence. Unnecessary for a film about Noah's ark.

The last third or so of the movie really got me frustrated. And it wasn't just because of its inaccuracy, though that was part of it. Aronofsky degenerates the story into ridiculous melodrama, all of which is not mentioned in the Bible in any capacity. For the sake of sensitivity, I won't give out specifics, but I will just say that this section of the film, which lasts close to half an hour, really took Noah to places it didn't have to go.

At this point in the review, you probably think I hated the film. That's not entirely true, though. There is the first half or so that I really enjoyed, and there were other undeniable pros. One of these is the look of the film. It is visually dazzling on a rather epic scale, and aesthetically pleasing all the way through. I must commend Aronofsky and his crew for that. And, the acting, as I previously stated, was very good. All the performances were really well done. This was not quite enough to save the movie from its flaws, unfortunately.

There were some liberties taken in the film that I could have lived with on their own. The whole subplot of Watson's character being barren and unable to have kids, the fact that the movie only takes place over the course of around 10 or so years, instead of 100 as in the Bible, even the giant rock monsters were not enough to make me dislike this. However, these are not the only liberties. They piled up so much until I just gave up expecting an accurate adaption of this story. I was really hoping for a movie that at least largely stuck to the source material. And I was certainly not expecting any indulgence in melodrama. The visuals are great, the actors are too, but Noah is ultimately a major disappointment from Darren Aronofsky. It had so much promise...

Conclusion 

Noah may be visually outstanding and very well-acted, but it is unable to satisfy due to an endless array of inaccuracies and unnecessary liberties Darren Aronofsky decides to take. It had the potential to be an exciting and epic adaption of the story of Noah's ark, but instead is an unfortunate misfire from a great director. 

Rating: 2/4

NOTE: I have decided to adopt a 4 star rating system. It will just make it a bit easier for me to score the movies I review. Not much of a change, just letting any readers know.