If you thought Darren Aronofsky -- the master director of such subtle films as Black Swan (2010), The Wrestler (2008), The Fountain (2006), and Requiem for a Dream (2000) -- was in over his head with the biblical story of Noah, you weren't alone. From the first trailer, we could tell this movie was going to be heavy with special effects and struggling for an emotional center. But with a stellar director and a dream cast, along with one of the most complicated and brief stories from the book of Genesis, my hopes remained high.
A very straightforward plot makes this film feel like an epic. But with its very small cast of characters, however, it goes from being Ben-Hur (1959) or The Ten Commandments (1956) to a family drama amidst an apocalypse. Tonally, it feels almost like a continuation of the Oedipus story, where the patriarch receives special warning from an absent deity and is forced to sacrifice the global population to save his family. That doesn't exactly sound like the story we heard in Sunday school, does it? That's because Aronofsky bravely opens the story into a realistic realm of darkness that expands glossed-over moments in the biblical account.
Unfortunately, however, for a film that covers relatively new cinematic ground, the film feels recycled. It's a typical action-adventure, a combination of Gladiator (2000) and 2012 (2009), with a dash of The Hobbit (2012) tossed in. Noah (played by Russell Crowe) becomes a heroic warrior of sorts, informed by his (very, very) old mentor Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), who leads his family through hell on earth. His efforts, however, are dangerously hypermasculine, ultimately alienating his son and threatening to sacrifice an infant girl for his interpretation of God's will. His rival, Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), leads the supposedly sinful men of earth in vague opposition to Noah and in battle to take the Ark for themselves. And just in case you didn't know, they fail, and Noah's family survives to repopulate the now-empty earth. Yay.
The only fully fleshed-out character is Noah, a surprisingly psychological protagonist. His struggle through what he thinks is God's orders is quite gripping, and Crowe handles it with strength and compassion. A fairly unlikeable character, he elicits a little sympathy from us as he wrestles with the possibility that he is imagining the approaching catastrophe. Later, after he sees the destruction and carnage of the flooded world, we suspect that he has lost his senses entirely. Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Emma Watson play his family, and their performances are solid if rather inconsequential. Watson's role is larger than the others and she rises to its challenge admirably, especially in the film's third act.
The film's special effects are undeniably dazzling, and the animals are a marvel to watch, if only briefly. A strong theme of environmentalism carries through the film, which is an unexpected but welcome addition to the tale, and surprisingly appropriate. A lot of controversy has arisen around the film, mostly (as we expected) from biblical literalists, who oppose the darker elements and potential madness of Noah's character. Other changes from the source material also cause indignation, including Noah's sons' harried search for wives to take on the Ark, as well as the surprisingly pagan motif of nature-worship. The opening sequence is a montage of combined creation and evolution, a seed from the Garden of Eden springs forth a massive forest to provide wood for the Ark, and an obscure mystical element draws animals to the Ark before they are put to sleep by drugged incense.
Perhaps the one element I find most ambiguous is that of the Watchers. These "fallen angels" are disenfranchised from God because they wanted to help humans in the post-Eden world. While this is not necessarily biblical, it is an interesting twist on the brief mention of the "sons of God" and the Nephilim of Genesis. But these beasts appear as golems, large stone sentinels that help Noah's family build the Ark. They sacrifice themselves while fighting Tubal-Cain's assault (a la Saruman's forces in The Two Towers (2002)) and as a reward are allowed to return to heaven. So...the "fallen angels" are actually sacrificial spirits that help humans in their plight against nature? What kind of God would kick them out of heaven? Aronofsky, you clever bastard, you'll have us talking yet.
But the most problematic element of the film is its whitewashed cast. While its mythic plot arguably makes ethnicity irrelevant, the film hearkens back to the 1950s biblical epics of White Men doing White Judeo-Christian things in order to save the White populace. I would hope that filmmakers would cast actors purely by virtue of their acting skills, but there is something to be said when a film that supposedly takes place in a part of the world where (and at a time when) Caucasians weren't really a thing, and casts no one of any shade of color. This is a world where only white people can be saved by other white people (specifically Judeo-Christian men), and that doesn't sound like the world my God created.
Drowning in special effects and flooded with spectacle, this watery wannabe-epic fittingly ushered in a season of over-the-top summer blockbusters. It feels like the apocalyptic, Christian version of Clash of the Titans (2010) in both tone and cinematic style. Not a great film to be compared with. I can't blame any one factor, but for all its great conversation-starting turns, Noah is just not particularly memorable.
IMDb: Noah
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