Mikes Film Talk

In 2014, Darren Aronofsky finished Noah, his version of the biblical tale of a flooded world where only a chosen few survive by building an ark and filling it with pairs of animals, but his story is much more science fiction than bible fact. The film is enjoyable precisely because of this merging and changing of what is normally a pretty large morality tale, bigger than the one about Sodom and Gomorrah by quite a bit, into an epic more magical telling of the first time the “creator” destroyed his creation.

The Noah Story

According to the film, which does quote the bible just enough at the beginning, Adam and Eve have Cain, Abel and Seth. They are kicked out of Eden. They are in exile when Cain kills Abel. Cain is banished from his new home. It is his offspring who destroy the earth by means of a “gross” of industrial cities. (Aronofsky’s phrasing not this reviewers) Seth assumes the mantle of vegetarian earth father who bats for the “other side.”

Noah

Noah (Russell Crowe), who is the last of Seth’s clan, raises his own family and has a vision of water, he is floating in the stuff. Men are encroaching on Noah’s home and he takes the family and flees. On the way they find an old mine. They find a young girl; Ila. She is badly wounded. *Ila grows up to be played by Emma Watson.* They take her fleeing into a black area. There are piles of human skulls at the perimeter.

They have entered the land of the giants, aka The Watchers and the men follow. One Watcher rises up and scares the pursuers off and knocks Noah out cold. The family wake up in a canyon. Rock creatures surround the little group. The creatures leader orders the humans to be left to rot. One of the Watchers ignores the order and saves Noah and his small family.

Methuselah

The patriarch goes into the mountain to speak to his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins). He takes Shem, who he treats with deference and leaves Ham at home with his mother and little brother. Once there, he drinks some “medicinal” tea and has another vision, he now knows what to do about the flooding. He must build an ark. The Watchers, after a sign from the Creator, (A spring appears in the middle of all the desolation. Noah plants the seed that his grandfather gave him. It generates a huge forest of trees.) help Noah to build his large wooden craft.

The task takes long enough that Ila now is a young lady, Shem has a beard, mustache and pretty randy attitude, and Noah has had a haircut and trimmed his beard. Ham, after being pretty much made to feel like a second class citizen his whole life, becomes socially inept and likes to spy on Ila and Shem. The baby is now a pre teen and amazingly Jennifer Connelly, as Naameh, has not aged a day.

The Ark

As the ark is being built. The animals are arriving in dribs and drabs, birds and snakes also arrive. Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) and a number of men turn up. After a short exchange with Noah, Cain is surprised to see that the rock giants have joined the other side. Making threats, Tubal-Cain withdraws to build an army to take Noah’s ark.

The surrounding camp becomes hell on earth as starving people turn on one another and become animals. There is discord in family Noah as Ham cannot find a wife and Ila wants to leave as she cannot have children. The rush is on to finish loading the ark in preparation for the upcoming storm. Noah has doubts.

At the time of Noah‘s release, many religious organizations were upset at the film’s depiction of perhaps the least known figure in the bible. However Aronofsky chose to take the threads of the Biblical tale and to use the names and lineage. Sadly, he dressed the whole tale with a sort of parallel world coating.

Transformers?

Perhaps the feeling that The Watchers are a version of Transformers, with the one who helps Noah filling in for Optimus Prime, helps bring about that science fiction air to the proceedings. Certainly the message of the movie, that back in “biblical times” man destroyed the planet through his industrial cities and bad practices fits more of a science fiction reality than what really caused the “big guy” to flood the world.

There is also a sort of juxtaposition of morality. In Noah’s world, it is a sin to kill animals to eat, vegan is the order of the day for Seth’s offspring, yet it is perfectly all right to kill men who intrude into his territory. The Creator is, presumably, God. However, Methuselah fulfills that role almost as well, with his little touches of miracles here and there.

Surprisingly, for a film that does not tackle the bible at all apart from the most loose retelling of Noah’s story and choses, instead dances around the whole sin issue, Noah is entertaining, if not a little over long. At 138 minutes there are stretches that are slow and a bit boring. Even with the added touch of having Tubal-Cain as a stowaway on board for a climatic fight and the subplot about Ila’s daughters, the film drags under the weight of all that water.

Grizzly Adams

Still, Aronofsky delivers. Despite having made the colossally bad decision to cast Russell Crowe as the “Grizzly Adam’s” version of Noah. The movie entertains. This benefits from streaming. One can take breaks when the film bogs down or fast forward to the action.

The Verdict

Noah earns 3.5 out of 5 stars. The biggest drop has to do with miscasting rather than all the CG . Added to the problem Aronofsky makes this into a sort of re-imagining of a bible story. It works better as science fiction with a hint of misplaced finger wagging.

The Trailer