Noah (2014)

Noah (PG-13)

"When it rains it pours"

Director Darren Aaronofsky's (Requiem For A Dream) life long ambition of putting the Bible parable Noah on screen comes to fruition, but comes through quite waterlogged with modern ideas and structure.  While not as atheist-centric as some had feared, the tale of Noah is filled with fantasy sci fi trappings along with the strongly mythical ones.

For an epic the story feels quite small, with just a few sets (ash land, rock land, grassy mountain, ark).  For an epic there are very few characters, just Noah and his family and the evil Tubal-Cain (played by Ray Winstone), whose armies are just nameless background cannon(golem)fodder.  The lack of racial diversity is an eerie throwback to Ten Commandments whitewashing, the fantastical rock giants evoke the LOTR trilogy more than the Holy Bible, the CGI driven time lapse photography that is quite jarring as it promotes evolutionary creationism, human bad guys shoot rocket launchers at those giant golems, and the fauna of the Earth that are saved two by two are strangely unevolved (dogs with armadillo scales?).  The casting too lacks a certain finesse, with no performances besides Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah generating much interest.  The choices are odd, and when considering the market for a straight laced Bible story is probably dwindling, the cynical might scream that these add-ons are mere tricks to spice up the potential box office gloom.

Yet when the movie plays upon and toys with the themes of this ancient mythology it actually hits some strong (if too modernized) philosophical chords and proves it's artistic forethought.  The nature of the relationship between Creator and creations, the fight of good vs evil, sinful human nature versus his wished for ideals, these are inborn to the story of the flood.  Stepping then as it does into the sciences of ecology, environmentalism, and conservationism makes the movie more palatable to modern audiences while still keeping its morals, or most of them, intact.  When the Earth is being wiped out due to humanity's strip mining and pollution (the evil king is very unPC and therefore very pro-Earth exploitation) it skews it more towards self righteous liberalism.  Add that to the mix the freakish rock-creatures and rough old testament miracles, Noah survives the flood of new and old.  The added action scenes and family strife pad the overlong runtime to over 2 hours, but really could it be that entertaining of a story without them?  Putting at its forefront the idea that mankind was once so technologically advanced and neglectful of the Earth and had to be completely wiped-out doomsday style is a side of the story often unexplored, and is probably just what 9 year old Aaronofsky was attracted to in the first place.  Noah then has to wrestle with letting all of humanity die or let it begin again, which does the Creator want and what is it saying about us, the descendants of these men?  Interesting ideas, but Noah just interests more than flat out entertains.  However if you can forgive the deluge of eccentricity there are worse ways to spend an rainy afternoon.

5 Noah the Hatchet Man out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)