Noah (B or 3/4 stars)
'Noah' (directed by Darren Aronofsky, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan) is a serious, thoughtful film that creatively re-interprets the Biblical story of Noah and tackles big, timely issues of morality, survivor guilt, & our questionable connections to the divine. It's also just a grand adventure with drama & special effects. Beginning with a line from Genesis: "In the beginning, there was nothing", this film positions Noah (Russell Crowe) as a righteous man who feels he is receiving omens & seeks consult from his mystic grandfather, Methuselah (a mercurial, amusing Anthony Hopkins). Noah realizes that he is commanded by 'The Creator' (the word 'God' is never used) to build a massive Ark & collect all the animals to preserve them in the coming flood that will wipe out all of life on Earth.
Noah is helped in this task by 'The Watchers', fallen angels who were once pure light but are now punished for their mistakes by being imprisoned in mud & rock formations. While Noah struggles to follow the will of The Creator, he also has to deal with family issues. His wife, Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) struggles to understand Noah's mission. Ila (Emma Watson), a girl Noah & his family rescued after her village was slaughtered, is loved by Noah's eldest son, Shem (Douglas Booth); but due to an injury, she cannot have children, & she doesn't want to prevent him from creating a new generation with another woman. And Ham (Logan Lerman, so good in The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Noah's middle son, is mad that there seems to be no prospect of a wife/family for him on the horizon.
Evil is personified in this film by pagan warlord Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), a descendant of the Bible's 1st fratricidal sinner (killed Noah's father) & continues to cause major problems throughout the epic tale. As the skies open up & the ground swells with water, rain pours down for 40 days & 40 nights, drowning the rest of humanity (executed like a horror movie, screams from dying people are heard from inside the Ark; human pyramids are formed to escape the rising waters ... but to no avail). All the while, a deeply-conflicted, tormented Noah wrestles with his inner demons in his desire to obey what he feels that the Creator commands.
Director/Producer/co-writer Darren Aronofsky boldly breaks away from the basic perception of the Noah story. The big moments are all there: the flood, the omens, the 'Watchers', the thousands of animals ... all executed with a unique flair, while still handled with traditional meaning & import. Some religious people may find the changes made to this Noah story to be too much to handle (the depiction of 'The Watchers', adding character motivations, epic violence, murder, discussions of infanticide, a stowaway in the Ark). But those religious purists - as well as anyone else - would be shortsighted to see that Aronofsky is trying to convey several themes of humanity, mortality, & environmentalism within this Biblical tale. He speaks about human frailty; urges for lust for power.
If I have issue with the film, it's that the final 30 minutes feel a bit overwrought and yet also draggy INSIDE the Ark. i.e, there is intense family melodrama going on; lots of crying; brooding. It became too much after a bit. I mean, I realize that the ramifications of what Noah is doing (and how it reverberates with his family) is a HUGE deal, but I still felt that it was overextended & overwrought. Having said that, I was riveted to the first slow-burn 90 minutes leading up to - and the the actual - flood. The 75 ft. high, 450 ft. long Ark is a magnificent achievement of production design. Matthew Libatique's cinematography (filmed in rugged Iceland) & the special effects (the animals arriving two-by-two, the pulse-racing CGI flood sequence) are incredible -- think old-school Hollywood epics from the 1950s).
Russell Crowe gives a fully-committed performances. His Noah is a good man who thinks he's doing the right thing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Crowe grapples with survivor's guilt after the Ark sets sail and, the fall-out afterwards ... is devastating. The rapport btwn. Crowe & Jennifer Connelly is palpable. It's nice to see her doing good work in a good movie again. Logan Lerman brings vulnerability & confusion to a role that represents the bad in humanity for the ages. And Emma Watson impresses as the Ila; a young woman who is bestowed a magical chance at motherhood, then must face a reality that may involve the violent taking away of said motherhood. Noah's mix of epic-scale spectacle with the more urbane Biblical tale of a man and his Ark may prove to be too dissonant for some viewers. I get that. So while I acknowledge my issues with the final half hour or so, I do respect & admire Aronofsky's massive vision of this timely story.
Noah is helped in this task by 'The Watchers', fallen angels who were once pure light but are now punished for their mistakes by being imprisoned in mud & rock formations. While Noah struggles to follow the will of The Creator, he also has to deal with family issues. His wife, Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) struggles to understand Noah's mission. Ila (Emma Watson), a girl Noah & his family rescued after her village was slaughtered, is loved by Noah's eldest son, Shem (Douglas Booth); but due to an injury, she cannot have children, & she doesn't want to prevent him from creating a new generation with another woman. And Ham (Logan Lerman, so good in The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Noah's middle son, is mad that there seems to be no prospect of a wife/family for him on the horizon.
Evil is personified in this film by pagan warlord Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), a descendant of the Bible's 1st fratricidal sinner (killed Noah's father) & continues to cause major problems throughout the epic tale. As the skies open up & the ground swells with water, rain pours down for 40 days & 40 nights, drowning the rest of humanity (executed like a horror movie, screams from dying people are heard from inside the Ark; human pyramids are formed to escape the rising waters ... but to no avail). All the while, a deeply-conflicted, tormented Noah wrestles with his inner demons in his desire to obey what he feels that the Creator commands.
Director/Producer/co-writer Darren Aronofsky boldly breaks away from the basic perception of the Noah story. The big moments are all there: the flood, the omens, the 'Watchers', the thousands of animals ... all executed with a unique flair, while still handled with traditional meaning & import. Some religious people may find the changes made to this Noah story to be too much to handle (the depiction of 'The Watchers', adding character motivations, epic violence, murder, discussions of infanticide, a stowaway in the Ark). But those religious purists - as well as anyone else - would be shortsighted to see that Aronofsky is trying to convey several themes of humanity, mortality, & environmentalism within this Biblical tale. He speaks about human frailty; urges for lust for power.
If I have issue with the film, it's that the final 30 minutes feel a bit overwrought and yet also draggy INSIDE the Ark. i.e, there is intense family melodrama going on; lots of crying; brooding. It became too much after a bit. I mean, I realize that the ramifications of what Noah is doing (and how it reverberates with his family) is a HUGE deal, but I still felt that it was overextended & overwrought. Having said that, I was riveted to the first slow-burn 90 minutes leading up to - and the the actual - flood. The 75 ft. high, 450 ft. long Ark is a magnificent achievement of production design. Matthew Libatique's cinematography (filmed in rugged Iceland) & the special effects (the animals arriving two-by-two, the pulse-racing CGI flood sequence) are incredible -- think old-school Hollywood epics from the 1950s).
Russell Crowe gives a fully-committed performances. His Noah is a good man who thinks he's doing the right thing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Crowe grapples with survivor's guilt after the Ark sets sail and, the fall-out afterwards ... is devastating. The rapport btwn. Crowe & Jennifer Connelly is palpable. It's nice to see her doing good work in a good movie again. Logan Lerman brings vulnerability & confusion to a role that represents the bad in humanity for the ages. And Emma Watson impresses as the Ila; a young woman who is bestowed a magical chance at motherhood, then must face a reality that may involve the violent taking away of said motherhood. Noah's mix of epic-scale spectacle with the more urbane Biblical tale of a man and his Ark may prove to be too dissonant for some viewers. I get that. So while I acknowledge my issues with the final half hour or so, I do respect & admire Aronofsky's massive vision of this timely story.