Noah Movie Review
Ever wonder what the most holy document in Western Culture would look like as cheesy action movie? Wonder no more!
Religious themed movies are a bit of a conundrum for me. An astute regular reader might have noticed that I tend to be pretty forthcoming with my opinion on bad or good movies. Normally when the movie subject is giant robots fighting each other or chicks coming to terms with stuff the danger of that opinion offending someone is reasonably minimal. However religion and politics are two areas where just having an opinion will automatically alienate half of your potential readers. For this reason I did not review Son of God even though I saw it.
This problem was binding me up as I sat in the theater for Noah. However, as questions kept coming to mind like “Hmm. I don’t remember the Biblical story of Noah having giant rock lava monsters who helped him build his ark” or “Pre-flood Biblical people had magical metal nuggets that could start a fire, do a pregnancy test, or be used to build shoulder launched RPGs? I did not know that” I slowly came to realize that this film was not a religious movie at all but instead a creature that I have hunted down and slaughtered dozens of times before; a horrible sci fi adaptation of a novel.
Yes, it’s our old friend the bad Hollywood version of an otherwise innocent story. Like Hercules, the Golden Compass, Daredevil, the Cat in the Hat, and Ghost Rider this is another story that should have either been treated with the respect it’s fans demand or just left alone. And like most bad adaptations it’s a craptastic movie.
I can say that without fear of repercussions because if I were a hard core Christian I think I would find this movie to be on the border of sacrilege and heresy. Every lame element that Hollywood smears over every film has been forced onto this story: giant CGI monsters, magic, bad romantic sub plot, a villain who is evil for evils sake, gargantuan plot holes, and historical continuity errors. I think it a sign of massive ego and arrogance that Darren Aronfsky and Russell Crowe requested a private audience with the Pope based on the fact that they made this bad science fiction movie. Honestly I think Will Smith has about as much right to do so for making thinly veiled Scientology movie After Earth. It has about as much to do with the Bible.
This film is another example of the brilliance of Hollywood film marketing departments. I have seen the trailer for this at least 20 times and never once caught wind of giant rock monsters, glowing radioactive power stones, or magical beans. It’s clear that some talented director of marketing sniffed out the elements of this film that truly sucked and opted to leave them on the cutting room floor when it came time to create the trailer. By the way, if you check out the Noah official site you will not see a single rock monster image. Smart. Would that Darren had consulted them sooner.
The other thing that is weird about this film is like most design by committee Hollywood BS it sits firmly on the fence in fear of offending one side or another. Is this a Bible movie or not? If it is I think it fair to to call God God instead of the very PC and gutless “Creator”. During the tale of creation as told by Noah to his sons they more or less screwed up the timing and instead of showing God creating life as we know it it shows a montage of sped up evolution. Is this Creationism? Is this intelligent design? Is it true evolution? It’s like they are trying to alienate both the religious and non religious audience members.
Plus a lot of the stuff they added made no sense. So Noah and his wife find a drug they give to all the animals that let’s them sleep for nine months straight (or at least as long as it takes made up character Ila to go from barely pregnant to giving birth. At the bare minimum it should have been 40 days and 40 nights, right?) but somehow they don’t need food or water while asleep? Is it true stasis? It shows all the animals breathing while asleep so they are processing something? Is this a miracle? If so why do they need the herb? Also if so why did no one on the Ark remark upon it? What the hell was that glowing explosive metal? Where did an ancient army get stainless steel armor and weapons that would have made a 12th century army proud?
You see, the issues of feeding thousands of animals, having the carnivores not eat every herbivore as soon as they get off the boat, genetic degradation from massive inbreeding, and the ability of a boat to house millions of tons of animal flesh are endemic to the story of Noah and need to be explained by the hand of God in order to work but by making changes to solve some of them but not all of them you only make them more obvious. Add in all the historical continuity issues and the fact that the main character Noah spends the entire film being a class one dick to everyone around him and you end up with a film buried under it’s own problems.
Oh, while this movie might have been inspired by the Bible it was also “inspired” by about 10 movies including the Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, and the Dark Crystal. Original thought is not this films catch phrase. I find this odd since until now I would have said Darren Aronofsky was one of a few really creative writer/directors.
The story, I guess. Did you ever read the story of Noah from the Bible? If so try to forget it as it will have very little bearing on your comprehension of this film. That being said there are a few spoilers coming. It starts off with humanity being broken up into two groups; the evil descendants of Cain and the good descendants of Seth. However the Seth guys are literally killed down to one man and his son. The man is killed by a king named Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone-Sexy Beast, Hugo, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull) and his son, Noah, escapes. Noah grows up and has a family with Naameh (Jennifer Connelly-Hulk, Requiem for a Dream, Winters Tale) and his sons.
(Wait a minute. If Noah is the last descendant of Seth and all the descendants of Cain are evil where did he find Naameh? Did he convert her over to Seth-ism?)
Anyway, Noah has a dream where he sees massive flooding and death. His dream needs interpreting so he takes his family to see his grandfather Methuselah (? Anthony Hopkins-the Silence of the Lambs, Beowolf, Meet Joe Black). On the way to see Methuselah Noah and his family get captured by giant rock monsters (looking suspiciously Ent-like in my opinion) who decide to let the family die of dehydration in a canyon. One of the rock monsters (if only they were Monsters of Rock. Haw!) decides to help them…for some reason. They get to the mountain where Methuselah lives.
Once there Methuselah and Noah figure out the “the Creator” (I’m going to keep putting that in quotes to drive home how lame and sackless it is) plans to destroy the world because the Cain-ites are evil and have corrupted the planet. Noah decides he needs to build an Ark. Methuselah give him a magic bean from the Garden of Eden (?) that Noah plants and overnight grows into a huge forest, giving him the wood he needs. The rock monsters, as servants of “the Creator”, decide to help him.
Skip forward a few years and the ark is nearly built. Noah’s sons are grown up (mostly). The oldest, Shem (Douglas Booth-Worried About the Boy, LOL, Romeo and Juliet), is kind of a kiss ass but has a girlfriend in Ila (Emma Watson-Harry Potter, This is the End, the Perks of Being a Wallflower) who is barren. His next oldest son Ham (Logan Lerman-Percy Jackson, 3:10 to Yuma, Perks of Being a Wallflower) is a horny teenage boy who kind of resents the fact that Shem has a hot girlfriend and he is stuck with the old manual override (if you know what I mean). His youngest son is Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll-no other credits), who is pretty much a non-entity as far as the movie goes. The ark is huge (and honestly kind of what I would imagine the ark would look like. I’ll give good credit to the art director).
Anyway, Tubal-Cain shows up with an army drafted off the field from the Battle of Hastings and demands…something of Noah? Fealty? He tells Noah that if and when the flood comes he will be on that ark. Noah says no way and scares him off with the rock monsters.
(I’d like to bitch about this scene for a second. This was the pivotal scene in that trailer I mentioned before. Tubal-Cain says “I have men at my back and you defy me” and Noah replies “I’m not alone” in a very prophetic tone of voice. The trailer cut out at that point and very, VERY strongly implied that somehow the hand of God (or “the Creator”) intervened to help Noah but in the movie the rock monsters just stand up and scare the men away. I am savoring the irony of me complaining about not enough deus ex machina in a film but if that isn’t bait and switch I don’t know what is.)
Meanwhile Ham has the very legitimate concern about how is he ever going to have kids on a boat with him mother and the barren girlfriend of his brother. Noah sets out to procure wives for him and Japheth (Wive-R-Us? Or was he just going to hypnotize two ladies with the gravelly sound of his voice? By the way if there is a place called Wives-R-Us someone let me know. Thanks) but when he gets to Tubal-Cain’s encampment he finds every sin possible. He goes back to the arc and tells his family that the human race needs to die out so good luck with all those teenage hormones Ham and Japheth.
Ham is a little bent out of shape and runs off to find his own wife. At the encampment he falls into a mass grave and meets a cute girl named Na’el (Madison Davenport-Over the Hedge, the Possession, Horton Hears a Who) (By the way, a pit full of rotting corpses seems about as reasonable a place to meet women as anywhere else I’ve tried and with the exception of the girl I’m going to go out with this upcoming weekend better than online dating). The rain starts and it’s a race to get back to the ark before Tubal-Cain and his army arrive. Na’el steps on a bear trap (invented in the 18th century for those who care). Noah runs up to save Ham and leaves Na’el to literally be trampled to death by the crowd.
At the ark the rock monsters re-enact the scene where the Ents attack Isengard from the Two Towers except now they are on the defense and loose. Tubal-Cain brought some homemade RPGs and is blowing them up. The massive flooding arrives to wipe off all the humans although Tubal-Cain manages to stow away on the Ark (what Bible passage was that, exactly?). He hides among the sleeping animals and eats more than a few of them (Noah and his family are vegetarian. Didn’t you know that?).
Meanwhile Ila is pregnant (oh, yeah. Methuselah healed her. Which passage was that one?) and Noah, after consulting with “the Creator”, says that if it is a girl he will kill the baby to keep the human race from breeding. Tubal-Cain heals and turns Ham’s horny head away from Noah. Nine months later he attacks Noah while Ila gives birth to twin girls. Noah fights him off with help from Ham and at the last minute his love prevents him from killing the babies. Naameth realizes that with the birth of twin girls the ratio is now right and her two other sons can now marry their nieces (ewww).
Some other crap happens and Ham leaves the family to wander alone leaving Japheth behind to impregnate both of his nieces (double ewww).
The stars:
CGI and special effects were decent. One star. The director told Russell Crowe to be an intense, abusive a hole and he ran with it. One star. The rest of the acting was really good. One star. If you forget the source material and treat this as a cheesy Lord of the Rings knock off it can be fun. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes:
Were I a religious man I would find this movie sacrilegious as hell. Even were I not I find movies that claim to be adapted from literature but then twist in into some bad “re-imagined” Hollywood effluvia insulting. Two black holes. The sci fi elements they added to the story really compounded this issue. Rocket Propelled Grenades? One black hole. Massive plot holes. How did all those animals sleep for nine months with no food or water? You can’t say “miracle” without throwing us some sign of an actual miracle happening. One black hole. Noah’s character was a total bastard to his family. It’s tough to identify with a guy who is in all ways every stereotype of an abusive father. 
He even turns into an alcoholic at the end in order to more cater to his trope (Beer Magnet image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category). One black hole. Plans for future incest with girls who are infants is never a good story element. One black hole. Rock monsters. One black hole. 138 minutes is a really long time to spend looking at Russell Crowe looking like a homeless leather mug maker from a Renaissance Faire. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A grand total of four black holes. Kind of crappy. Should you see it? Probably not. If you are religious you will feel insulted and if not you will feel, well, kind of insulted. I know a lot of people are going to see it because it’s a religious film and they feel some obligation but at the end of the film as I walked out the fairly large crowd seemed really subdued, like they didn’t know how to process what just happened. They all kind of look liked they had just had a medical exam that may or may not have had the doctor touching them in a weird way and were all trying to figure out if they should say something or not. Date movie? No, for all the reasons I just gave plus the whole “baby murder/incest” thing might not be well received by your date. Bathroom break? The whole scene with Ham meeting Na’el among the rotting corpses does absolutely nothing since she is destined to be left to die by Noah in ten minutes anyway. Perfect time IMO.
Thanks for reading. Nothing on deck until tomorrow so I might just do a couple Star Trek retrospectives. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu and like us on FB. Feel free to post comments here with regards to this movie or my review. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave Inman
