Movie Review – Noah

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Spoiler alerts – 2016 Any movie about Noah’s Ark risks criticism from some corner. Biblical scholars will expect it to accurately reflect the scripture viewpoint, with all due reverence. Creationists will hope for an absolute literal take on the story. Scientists, atheists and sceptics like me will hope for a dark satire spoofing the whole myth for its absurdities. Darren Aronofsky’s movie, starring Russell Crowe as Noah, manages to miss all three of these boats by creating a bizarre fantasy that takes the story in directions bearing no resemblance to the scripture version. We get Noah and other characters wearing the shed-snake skin from the serpent of the garden of Eden. Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) appears as a Gandalf style wise wizard, who cures one of Noah’s daughters (Emma Watson) of barren-ness by poking her in the belly with his ET-style glowing finger. Methuselah spends the film looking for berries to eat and finds some right as the flood drowns him. Rock monsters made from exiled angels who dared to criticize God (who is never seen or heard and only ever referred to as The Creator) help Noah, build the Ark, and help defeat the army led by Ray Winstone who are armed with bazookas (yes, you read that right). Ray Winstone escapes the Flood by stowing away on the Ark, only to be killed by Noah as they reach dry land. One of the wives of Noah’s sons misses the boat because Noah won’t wait for her so his son leaves home when they reach land. Another wife (Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies) ) gets pregnant with twin daughters who Noah attempts to murder only to change his mind when he sees them. The film tries to side step issues like how Noah built the Ark (rock monsters did it) and how the animals were fed through the voyage (they were magically put in suspended animation for the whole journey). An entertaining mess full of What the Hell? moments. Aronofsky is a good writer-director - Black Swan was a terrific film. The problem with Noah is that it tries to bi-pass the standard Genesis plot known from Sunday schools, and other film versions (The Bible - In The Beginning) while still giving the standard set pieces. The trouble with the Flood is that the biggest spectacle hits mid-film. Sam Goldwyn said once that he liked a film to start with an Earthquake and then build up to a climax. Noah tries to top its central set piece with the fight with unexpected elements like the stowaway and Noah going through an Abraham & Isaac struggle as to whether to kill his innocent grand-children or not. That Aronofsky avoids Biblicalism is obvious - no mention or appearance for God, a vision of animals evolving in a standard progression of life motion animation. The environmentalism is quite strong - Winstone's tribe have reduced the middle east to an ashen wasteland, and though Noah's family are to survive, none of the sons are destined to have children until Methusaleh interferes and Noah seems happy with being a custodian to the wildlife but destined for his offspring to be the last generation of mankind ever until Hermione Grainger has twin girls (who can only spread the race incestuously). Aronofsky wants to move from the Biblical story but in still needing its most recognizable elements he is chained to it - it might have been better to come up with a completely made up fantasy framework for his own story. Some images are out of place. The Ark hits land before the doves return with the leaves, and the rainbow still hasn't fully formed before the final credits role. Some scenes look butchered for the sake of the budget - putting the animals to sleep isn't to explain how they were tended to, just to avoid the CGI needed to have them moving around. I did wonder which species Winstone wiped out by eating them to survive in hiding among them. Arthur Chappell