My Review of Noah Note: youll notice it doesnt say Spoiler-Free in the title, this is because Noah is based off a 4000 year old story from the Bible. That being said, there are some (twists is too strong of a word) that happen near the 3rd act, so when the time comes I will put a HUGE SPOILER WARNING around the paragraph so you may avoid details if you want. The Earth is barren and lifeless as the descendants of Cain have used up almost all of the worlds natural resources. The Creator has decided to cleanse the earth of all mans evil deeds and sends a message to the last remaining descendent of Seth to build an ark and save the innocent (animals) that still remain. This man is Noah. OKAY! Lets get the big elephant in the room out of the way. Noah is as Biblically accurate as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is Historically accurate. Sure, the broad strokes are there: Giant Ark, two of each Animal, the name Noah. But when it comes to giant 5-armed fallen angels made of stone helping Noah build the ark... Yeah, thats about a zero on the old accurate scale. Now I dont blame the movie for being very different from the source material (Im not even mad about it), I blame the studio for hiding (lying about) the fact that the film does this. I personally already knew before going in that it wasnt an accurate biblical epic like say The Ten Commandments (mainly thanks to the SRUnderground Podcast), but most the average audience will only view a trailer or commercial and do very little research into a film. And they shouldnt have to! I want to believe that the studio did this in ignorance, but lets face facts people, they did it for MONEY. They knew that if they marketed this movie a specific way they would not only get casual audiences but the ever growing Christian audience as well. Just look at Gods Not Dead, Son of God, Passion of the Christ or any Tylor Perry movie, these films make HUGE profits simply because when Christians finally have something come out for them, They go in MASS. And thats good! Christians should support films made for them! It just means more Christian movies will be made. I just feel that the Studio made a big misstep here. Yes, they WILL make money off of unknowing Christians, but only this weekend. The bad word of mouth on this thing is gonna Flood (pun intended) the Internet and churches alike come Sunday morning and kill any future residuals that could have been made. So would the studio have made more money for being honest and getting less opening weekend sales but more continual gross? Sadly, probably not, and thats because the quality of the film itself. When I do these reviews I try to be objective and not let original source material persuade my opinions. But, in honor of full disclosure, I am a Christian (shocker right? Lol). I feel I have a pretty fair and balanced view of this film, but if you dont share my views, I completely understand if you ultimately feel my opinions are not very fair or balanced. So, all BTS stuff aside, lets get to this movie already. Noah is a visually striking Epic film in the style of Lord of the Rings. Visually this film is beautiful. The scenery, the textures, the attention to detail of the clothes, animals and the sky, its all absolutely gorgeously shot. One scene in particular where Noah has just awoken from a dream and is standing in front of a bright night sky is something I would (and will) put as a wallpaper on my computer. Its just a beautiful looking film. However, since all this should be filed under direction, I do have a few complaints for the director (and co-writer) Mr. Darren Aronofsky. Some of the choices that were made in the editing room were at best very poor or at worst down-right conniving. One scene in particular comes to mind: when Noah is telling the story of creation. Sure the voice over is fairly accurate (though not totally), but the images that are on screen are, in my opinion, a deceitful way to push the theory of evolution on an unsuspecting audience. Now maybe Im seeing more into this, and its just a stylistic choice, but to me it seemed very manipulative. As Noah begins the story we start from black and then a bright flash followed by all the galaxies being thrown into place. Once Noah reaches the part of creating the animals, what transpires on screen made my jaw drop. We are shown (with biblical voice over mind you) a single-cell splitting/dividing/and duplicating into a fish that turns into a bigger fish which grows legs and crawls on the ground as a lizard until it grows fur and becomes a badger or beaver and grows bigger into a bear. Now the way this is shot could possibly be misleading, the director uses a form of stop-motion animation from frame to frame to show the changes from animal to animal, so, theoretically, Mr. Aronofsky could say that each cut is just a different animal and not the evolution of one to another. So ultimately Ill leave it to the viewer to decided, but I just needed to address this. Note: the director does use this form of stop-motion filming when revealing a stream running from the Forrest all the way to Cains land, so perhaps he just likes this style of filming. Next up, the Actors. The Actors in this film are really on their A-game. Russell Crow as Noah is one of the coolest casting choices Ive seen played out. He definitely makes me believe one man and his family could in fact build this enormous ark (rock-monsters help not included). Noahs wife played by Jennifer Connelly gives a very meek and earnest portrayal of Naameh. Ham, Sham and Japheth are played well (though story wise theres some issues). Ray Winstone gives a good performance as the generic bad guy Tubal-cain almost making you forget just how generic he truly is. But the shinning performances in this movie come from Anthoney Hopkins and Emma Watson. Mr. Hopkins performance as Methuselah is both comical and endearing (Ive never smiled so much at a berry). Ms. Watson as Ila holds the honor of being the only one to get an emotional response out of me (I didnt cry... okay so like, I had something in my eye okay! And my allergies were acting up, and... Shut up! Youre a girl! Im a mans man! I love laying Sheetrock). My only wish is that we could do a DC/Marvel crossover and just have Jor-El and Odin talk in a room with each other for like 3hrs. Thatd be great! And now the story. Okay, throwing all biblical connections to the side, does this movie have a good story? Well, Its okay. The first 2 acts I would say are pretty great. They do a fine job of setting up this world (weird rock-monster angels and all), and most the character choices make sense. Really the film doesnt begin to fall apart till right around the beginning of the third act. Okay so here it is! This is youre HUGE SPOILER WARNING SO GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN!!!!!! (Scroll down past this paragraph to read my final thoughts that will stay spoiler-free) So here we go... At the middle of the 2nd act (about half-way through the movie) Noah takes a trip into a quasi-village/town that has been setup in Noahs Magical Forrest in order to try and find wives for his two youngest sons. This town is as seedy and awful as you would expect by this point in the film. Noah begins for the first time to see just how bad man has become and he looks into one mans face and sees himself. At first its like a dream, but then we see Noah walking back from the town, so he REALLY did go, but also had a dream while there? Confusion aside, this image makes Noah realize that evil is in us all and that once they have finished the task of saving all the innocents (again: animals) that he and his family must die. This leads to a weird third act that, at times, feels like The Shining. Noah shares this with his family who agree to it, but then it turns out that Sham and Ila are now expecting a child and so the whole family turns on Noahs choice. Tensions build over the next nine months until coming to the ultimate conclusion. Noah has said that the oldest will be killed by the next oldest until one remains (Japheth) who will be the last man on earth, but now that this baby is here he decides that if its a boy then he will grow till he can kill Japheth and then hell be the last, but if its a girl she will be killed at birth so she cant mature into a mother. Well guess what Ila has- twin girls (what a twist!). So once theyre born Sham goes off to find Noah and kill him, the only problem is Ham is already in the process of His own plot to kill Noah for not letting him bring a wife on the Ark (a plot that was conceived by Tubal-cain after he was able to sneak on board the Ark (YEAH!) and convince Ham that he needed to do it. He also eats like 5-6 live animals so he can have their strength thus answering what truly happened to the Unicorns... Im kidding... But not really). So theres a 4 way battle over who gets to kill Noah, and ultimately Noah walks away the winner with only Tubal-cain being the one to die. Ila has made her way to the top of the Ark when Noah appears. She begs him not to, but Noah knows what he believes, so he raises his dagger to the sky and... slowly lowers it proclaiming that he cant do it. We skip ahead to Noah being drunk and alone away from his family on the new land theyve settled on. Ila finds Noah and explains to him that perhaps the Creator left the decision in Noahs hands, and that because Noah felt only love for the twin girls, he made the right one. Noah rejoins his wife and family, except for Ham who has left to go... do something... who knows. Okay so the overall problem with this twist for me is it either boils down to one of two options: 1: God told Noah to kill his family and Noah didnt thus negating the ENTIRE FLOOD and showing that man is better than God or 2: Noah is a crazy man and is using God as a way to justify his feelings for murder. Look obviously there are more than just these 2 interpretations of this ending, but either way it all comes out of nowhere and serves no real purpose to the story except for giving us a sense of tension until the film concludes. We could have easily have gotten this tension from Tubal-cain being on the ark, but the writers just felt they needed more I guess. Perhaps another way to get more anti-religion propaganda in the film? (Okay I agree, that last sentence didnt feel very fair or balanced to me either) END OF SPOILERS!!! YOU MAY CONTINUE READING!!! So where do we put this film? The first two acts are awesome, with the ending being not only pointless but stupid as well. Actors were good, and visually the film is beautiful. Of course we have to consider The Elephant. Let me put it plainly: if you are unable to watch a fictitious fantasy take on a bible story and not be offended DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM! Its okay if you cant, some people cant watch a lot of things because of historical inaccuracies so Im not judging here. As far as the rest of us go, if youve read this and still think some entertainment may be found in it, give it a watch. Its not great, but its not awful either. The greatness of the first two acts make up for the third, and you dont leave feeling cheated in any way. The beauty in this film is gonna go a long way for me, as well as Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson. All things considered, I liked it. 3/5
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 23:04:35 +0000
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