I never saw Noah when it was first released in 2014. To be honest, I'm not a religious person so I had no interest in watching a film based on the story of Noah's Ark. It's a tale that was forced up on us as kids in TV shows, rhymes and in religious education classes even though the actual story in only four paragraphs long (I did some research), so the thought of watching a 2hr+ bible movie starring Russell Crowe was not something I had any inclination to watch. Cut to 9 years later and old Petey boy is laid up in bed with flu, to ill to get up and look through the vast movie collection to find a film to watch and bored of watching Friends or Bob's Burgers' episodes, I headed to Netflix instead. Didn't have to leave my bed either.
What usually takes upwards of 15hrs to select a film, with me usually deciding on either Billy Madison or Beverly Hills Cop, I wanted something to slap on in the background as I drift in and out of sleep. I was sure that Noah was going to be one of those talkie bible films, with a bit of action dotted throughout its run time, so I pressed the "fuck it" button on the remote and sat back, or laid back as was the case and my mind instantly said "close your eyes Pete, just a little, nothing to see here" and normally old brain-boy is right but I defied my sub-conscious and kept me peepers open. From the offset I should have known this wasn't going to be a run of the mill ram-religious-bollocks-down-your-throat movie as it's co-written and directed by non-other than Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler and most recently the oscar winning The Whale, but it's not his first foray into religious film making as he made the brutal but extremely clever Jennifer Lawrence film, Mother.
Noah is, to put it lightly, full of shit. But, somehow its's biblically accurate, dunno if that says something about the writings in the bible but while watching an interview with Aronofsky post film, he explained the reason behind some of the artistic licence he took with the film. We all know the story, Noah was tasked by god to create an ark and to take two of each animal onboard as god was so cheesed off with mankind fuckin' up his Minecraft world, he planned to flood it to fuckery, wiping out all of life on earth except for the animals and Noah and his unfathomably good looking family. What Aronofsky does in quite clever. Remember, the year is 2023 now. It's two thousand and twenty three years since the resurrection of Christ but the the world is 65 billion years old. We know there were people around prior to Jesus obviously, and the story of Noah takes place a long long time before Jesus did his water to wine magic. Aronofsky said the film takes place in pre-history. A world where Jeans and leather hiking boots, backpacks, Conan The Barbarian armour an flaming fantasy swords existed. A world where fallen angels were forced to take the form of giant rock monsters who battled Ray Winstone amid the battlefield of a scorched earth. Maybe, the people before recorded history were as advanced as we are now, only because God was so pissed he started a new game but started from scratch instead of New Game+ where he could have had a bonus weapon, costume or the triangle boobied Lara Croft minimal pixel skin from Tomb Raider 1, but nooooooo, he had to start a new game, no extra powers, no special God skin, he started with only Russell Crowe a bunch of snakes, goats and a duck.
As I previously stated, I am not a religious person, I don't believe in god or the words of the bible, however, I do love me some post-apocalyptic Sci-fi fantasy, if that tale happens to be based around a four paragraph tale in the worlds most famous book then so be it, lots of films have based their plots on parts of the bible without resorting to preaching or becoming too fanatical. Watching Noah, sure there's the book of genesis, with Adam and Eve, the snake, the apple, Cain and Able, Methuselah, not Methuselah Doom from Conan but the biblical Methuselah, played by Anthony Hopkins here not James Earl Jones, there's the origin of the "Watchers", the so-called fallen angels who became the Rock monsters, based on the Nephilim from the Old Testament, basically mythical giants who could shapeshift into demons and had technologically advanced weapons. It's all very Scientology, if you ask me. The before Jesus times are far more interesting than the new testament and reminds me of old Norse mythology. But I'm not here to bash someone's faith or belief in the words of the bible, this a review for an entertaining "biblical" action sci-fi fantasy movie.
The film, while undeniably beautifully shot, does have to visual flaws. Some of the CGI is a bit ropey, especially the epic deluge sequence and some of the animals are a bit crap to be honest, however, the rest of the film is stunning. Russell Crowe gives a great performance as usual, first as a man with a mission from god but becoming more fanatical as the plot progresses and finding his way once again towards the end. Jennifer Connolly is very good as Mrs. Noah if underused a tad and to be fair, Emma Watson actually gives a pretty decent performance because lets face it, she's a terrible actress, not just in the Harry Potter movies but in Beauty and The Beast and the Bling Ring. Logan Lehrman comes off best as the adult version of Noah's son Ham, the middle child who finds himself torn between following his father on his mission from God or joining Ray Whinstone's gang of wasteland warrior/marauders.
I guess that if you go into Noah with expectation that you'll be see a religious epic in mould of Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments, you will undoubtedly be disappointed but if you go into Noah with an open mind and no expectations of seeing a religious epic, what you'll find is a deep, if somewhat anachronistic version of the 4 paragraphs from the book of genesis, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy movie, disguised as a religious epic. Watch it for the spectacle not the so-called religious themes, you might just have a blast.
It's pretty good...
Cheers
Pete
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