Noah (7/29/2014)

Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and brief suggestive content.

Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins and Ray Winstone

Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Black Swan, The Wrestler, The Fountain, and Requiem for a Dream)

To say Darren Aronofsky took some artistic license with Noah, would be the understatement of the decade.

Academy Award winner Russell Crowe stars as Noah, a man chosen by God for a great task before an apocalyptic flood destroys the world.

I walked into the theater with two things on my mind. 1.) I knew this was not a “Christian film” or a faithful retelling of the Biblical story of Noah and the great flood. 2.) The film has a handful of really solid actors and a pretty talented director, so it might still be entertaining.

It wasn’t.

Let’s quickly peek at the Biblical inaccuracies issue first (and please note, there are so many that I’m just going to hit the “big ones”). The biggest issue is the communication between God and Noah. Noah, his family and all the humans don’t seem to know God, never refer to God as God…they call him “the Creator.” He is portrayed as an angry, distant being that has had enough of mankind (probably a pretty accurate view of what many modern people think of God). When he speaks to Noah, he does so in vague visions. There are not the specific instructions we read in Genesis 6. Instead Noah believes the creator is going to destroy the earth so he comes up with the idea to build the ark.

Then there are the infamous “Watchers.” The Watchers are fallen angels who landed on earth and became rock giants…yeah rock giants. Remember the campy film Galaxy Quest? Well those rock giants looked better than the Watchers – more on that later. Unlike the Biblical account of fallen angels, they were not banished to Earth because of their decision to follow Lucifer, these angels came to Earth to help Adam and Eve because they felt sorry for them – and “the Creator” is angry with them.

The Watchers have compassion on Noah…even though they are at war with mankind…and help him build the ark. That’s right in Aronofsky’s version, fallen angels (rock people) build the ark…sigh.

There are also oddities like the glowing alien-like Adam and Eve, the compostable mineral and a scaly wolf-like creature.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about some of the other missteps Aronofsky made. First of all, Noah is one of the most unlikeable main characters in the history of film. Early in the film Noah rescues a wolf-like creature that is covered in scales instead of fur, in what I can only imagine is Aronofsky’s attempt at being creative. He has all this compassion for the wounded creature, but then he’s hell-bent on killing his own granddaughter. In another scene Noah rebukes his son for picking a flower, but then cuts down an entire forest to build the ark. So instead of cheering for him, I found myself agreeing with “the villain” Tubal-cain.

And speaking of Tubal-cain, he has an entire army and for some unknown reason he waits until it starts to rain to attack Noah and the six members of his family. Brilliant! (hardly)

I mean seriously, why would you wait…you clearly have more people. But wait…Noah has the Watchers…oh the drama.

When Tubal-cain finally does attack, we see the army wearing metal armor and wielding swords…I guess the Watchers helped with that technology too. But I’m not sure they showed Tubal-cain how to make a bazooka. Yeah a bazooka. He uses “the rare mineral” and a pipe to shoot things at the ark.

Really?

(SPOILER ALERT – although I would argue that the film is already “spoiled” for many different reasons)

Then he manages to hide inside the ark – unknown to Noah – for nine months! With a compound fracture in his leg, he manages to survive by eating the sleeping animals – raw. Well at least we now know what happened to the unicorns.

And the animals are put into a drug-induced hibernation that does not affect humans – sure that makes sense.

But my favorite nonsensical scene is when Noah spends nine months planning to murder his grandchild (if it’s a girl) at birth. It’s fair to say he is in a very dark place for much of the film and when the twin daughters are born he is about to stab them with a huge knife and then just changes his mind.

And it was no big surprise to see all of the “save the earth, hug a tree (unless you are using it to build the ark) and humans are bad” preaching throughout the film. In fact Noah is convinced that the Creator wants to kill off all of mankind…including Noah and his family. So his mission is to save the animals.

I’ll close with some of the things I did like (which I will easily fit into one paragraph). Seeing the animals gather and enter the ark was pretty awesome; and then seeing it floating through the storm was impressive. The filmmakers also did a good job showing the death and destruction of those not on the ark – something that is often left out of the Sunday School lesson. But those things can’t make up for this less-than-epic retelling of one of the most beloved stories of the Bible.

I say “Skip It.” (So tempted to score it a “Coaster”… but the elements in the last paragraph above saved it.)

SHOULD KIDS SEE IT?
The movie is very chilling and intense throughout… and of course, loaded with inaccuracy. My breakdown:

Shem and Ila kiss and take off their clothes…nothing is shown but sex is implied. We also see Adam and Eve naked (although they’re glowing and the shot is from a distance), and a drunken Noah (we see his backside from a distance).

As far as violence goes, we repeatedly see a silhouette replay of Cain killing Abel with a rock. And at one juncture, the sequence morphs into warlike conflicts throughout the ages, with the killer and victim becoming soldiers from ancient to modern times.

In another scene we see a ditch with piles of dead bodies. We also watch the Watchers kill many humans and fire from heaven kills even more. People are smashed, stomped, trampled, stabbed and, of course, drowned.

Noah kills quite a few attackers himself.

“Damn” is uttered four times. (But in context, the word is used correctly, with Tubal-cain declaring that he’ll be “damned” by the Creator no matter what he does. And because he does what he does, he is indeed damned.)

The whole flood sequence and battle is intense. Noah has several apocalyptic visions, the first of which involves seeing himself drowning amongst thousands of screaming people. Very intense.

In one scene, Noah travels to a village to find wives for his sons. He finds them acting like animals; we see babies being taken away for food, and women are traded for livestock. An animal is thrown into a crowd and violently eviscerated alive. Noah then sees a vision of himself amongst the crowd, eating the animal’s flesh raw and growling like an animal. This entire scene is extremely frightening and intense.

An innocent young woman is injured in an animal trap and then left to be trampled by a rampaging crowd.

After the flood begins, Noah and his family are inside the ark and all they can hear are the dying screams of thousands of drowning people. Very chilling.

CONVERSATION STARTER:

1. Read the story of Noah from the Bible (Genesis 6-9). What were some similarities between the movie and the Bible?


2. What were some differences?


3. Can you imagine God telling you what he told Noah? How do you think you would respond?


4. What can you do this week to do everything exactly as God had commanded?