Noah (2014)

The Worst Film Ever

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I also do not 'get' what all the hysteria is from the religious community regarding this film. Taken by itself, the movie is actually really really good!!! But first, a plot overview for those taken aback by the biblical inconsistencies: * The Nephilim, represented by walking Treants (living trees with branches -as-arms, human faces, etc), when fighting to protect the arc, upon death get sent to Heaven, and this rallies the rest to fight even harder; in the Bible, the Nephilim are beyond redemption permanently and cannot gain salvation. * God is not concerned with, in the opening scene, Noah's one son breaks the stem of a wildflower, and Noah corrects him saying not to destroy the nature that God created; in the Bible, God would not have cared if anyone had done this!! * Tubal-cain, played brilliantly by Ray Winstone, is the bad guy, trying to sneak onto the Arc (and eventually gets there, by befriending Ham, the 'bad' son of Noah, who gets fooled by Tubal-Cain). This character would mostly be historically accurate, if not for the fact that his only 'sin' portrayed is being overly-zealous and rallying an army with steel weapons to produce siege weaponry. Again, God could care less if trees were cut down to make any sort of technology to be used - God said to A. & E. in the garden, "This garden is yours to do with as you see fit. The birds of the air, the ground, all is yours to live off of as you see fit (paraphrasing). * Noah was never tested by God to sacrifice one of his new-born sons!! Abraham, however, was, in similar fashion; but in the movie, God really meant for Noah to kill his newborn - in the Bible, the command to Abraham was only a test of loyalty and the child was stopped from being sacrificed!! The beginning of the film starts off with, as I said, one son (I forget which) breaking off a wildflower stem. Then Noah and his family move along, over a very nicely done backdrop of a destroyed wasteland with few resources. They encounter some trouble from strangers and fight. Character of Shem is introduced who has a fiance, Emma 'The Amazing' Watson, and shows a few scenes involving those two. There is a grandfather, Methuselah, who uses his God-granted power of Healing Touch (this is an accurate portrayal of a power true Christians have), causes her to overcome her infertility and directs her to seduce Shem at this time to conceive. I am particularly struck by, how for a movie so Biblically inaccurate, there are some moments that get the culture of the day right, and the previously mentioned scene is particularly tear-jerking and powerful!!! Next, these Nephilim agree to help Noah build the arc (inaccurate), and fight off Tubal-Cain's armies of, I call them the 'unwashed masses' of angry men (inaccurate). Around this time, there is a scramble to get Shem and his fiance, late to arrive, onto the arc. Next, a number of Nephilim begin to die. At around this time, Tubal-Cain manages to enter the arc through a hidden spot around the back, and narrowly avoids the flood. Anyways, the film ends with Noah disobeying God by not having the gall to kill his own son. (inaccurate - God was against child sacrifice). My only critique of this film is that the character of Tubal-cain is introduced as kind of a one-dimensional character, a typical - we would call today- kind of a thuggish street tough. His leadership abilities are shown, as he rallies his men with am empassioned speech, but really not much jealously from him or personal struggles shown. It never shows anything Tubal-Cain actually did wrong; I was expecting them to show some massively wicked guy. Noah and his family are however greatly complex. I don't know if this is a flaw or if it was intentional - just something I noted. Jennifer Connelly plays Noah's wife, and a great deal of Noah's consciousness are focused on her as she goes over the struggles they are facing with the family aboard the arc. Perhaps a 9 is in order. Perhaps not. Still one of the more memorable films I've seen. On a side note: I am also a fan of Aronofsky's The Wrestler. I have yet to review it, but it was funny to see Todd Barry playing the wrestler's boss as he works at a supermarket, a side job to his wrestling career. He constantly jabs him in a way only Todd Barry could pull off, it is hilarious!!

Other than the building of an ark followed by a flood the story with sci-fi styled support particularly with the stone men 'watchers', I'd say the movie was a bust. This wreaks of a left coast production. Russel Crowe is not a very good actor either. I swear he's type cast in his role from "Gladiator". He's always somber, sullen and inanimate as if he's due to go out into the arena. The mike pickup is bad too because it's hard to understand what he's saying at times because he has a tendency to swallow his words. Too many back shots of him too. What's up with that. I can see why this wasn't well received in the Muslim world due to its deviation from scripture both their Qu'ran and so too the Christian Bible. The director would have done better if he'd created Noah along Cecil B. Demille's "Ten Commandments", then it would have had more gravitas at the box office and better received. I'm glad I watched this on FX rather than having paid to view such in a theater.

I'll be brief... Read the title again !!! Here you go... Just one more time to be sure.

That's okay, in principle, as the Old Testament itself is full of holes, especially in the earlier times (starting with how do Adam and Eve and 3 sons begat the succeeding generations?), but not if it leaves equally baffling questions, such as who mothered the line of Ham? Visually, the film is good and some of the acting - notably Jennifer Connolly and Emma Watson, plus a nod to the equally reliable Anthony Hopkins - is excellent. But the whole thing hangs on Noah, who in this case comes across as the sort of fanatical Bible beater we are familiar with (and should be repulsed by) in far too many churches (and not just pseudo-Christian ones) across the world. Given the nature of the Biblical story, this may have been an impossible task for Russell Crowe (who has shown sensitivity in other roles). And given the impossibility of reconciling the OT God with the Christian one Jesus talked about, perhaps it is time to remove the OT from the Christian Bible and treat it simply as a fascinating origin of man myth and history of the ME peoples, instead of a sacred book. After all, the OT can be - and all too often is - used to justify virtually anything, from incest through slavery to ethnic cleansing!