Noah

Let me start by saying, i am not a typical religious person. I don´t visit church often or read the bible. This does not mean i have anything against religious people. I belive that no matter what religion we choose, we all have the right to choose our own way. And this is what i have done. But i will say this. I am skeptical about churches against gay people, but still we find out that male preachers have sex with other men, this makes no sense at all. Every church should welcome any member, no matter if you are gay or straight. I don´t think Jesus would say that gay people are less worthy, i am pretty sure he would accept them for who they are. Speaking of the bible, there are many characters that have been made into tv films, or even major studio motion pictures. One of the biggest box office hits of all time, based on Jesus, was The Passion Of The Christ. Mel Gibson directed this very powerful motion picture where we followed the story how Jesus died in his final days. There was a lot of reactions on this movie adaption back in 2004, from many different religious organisations. But the audience did not seem to care, it was a huge box office success. So here we are, with a different story based on the character Noah, you probably heard the story Noah And The Ark.

As a very young boy, Noah becomes a witness of his father Lamech ( Marton Csokas ), being killed by Tubal-cain ( Ray Winstone ). As the years go by, Noah ( Russel Crowe ) is now living with his wife Naameh ( Jennifer Connely ) and their children Shem ( Douglas Booth ) , Ham (
Logan Lerman ) and Japheth ( Leo McHugh Carroll ). Noah is haunted by vivid dreams, and have seen signs like instant growing flowers, so he decide to take the family to their grandfather Methuselah ( Anthony Hopkins ). On their way to Methuselah, they find dead people, who seems to be killed in battle. There is one survivor, a girl named Ila ( Emma Watson ). She joins the family on their journey. Tubal-cains army chase Noah and his family, but they manage to survive thanks to the stone golems, known as Watchers. Methuselah gives Noah a seed, that can make a forest grow within seconds. The whole family begin building an ark, that Noah was told to build from above. Noah realise they need to work hard, to get the ark finished. Tubal-cain is prepared to attack the ark, and he have an idea. If he could get help from one of Noha´s sons, he might be able to kill Noah.

As usual, some religious groups have spoken about differences between the bible and the character Noah in the movie. Personally i have no idea what the changes are, i just try and focus on my opinion about the motion picture overall. If there is one positive thing about this adaption, it is that there are some majestic battle scenes, especially between the stone golems and Tubal-cain´s army. I think this is the first time i have ever seen so much action in a biblical story, and that is a very good sign. Russel Crowe is good as Noah, maybe not his best performance, but much better than in A Good Year ( oh man that was a cheesy one ). Ray Winstone fits pretty well as the evil Tubal-cain, as he try to do anything to destroy Noah´s life. So let´s get to the problems. The length is one thing, it feels very drawn out in some scenes, like director Darren Aronofsky just let the scenes become longer than necessary. Another problem is that the storyline feel very light, let me explain. If you have read the story, you know what will happen, but there are absolutely no new twists here, no surprises. And i think that would have been a good thing, even if some religious people would be against that. If you make a storyline too simple, you will eventually feel like you would hope for a different twist. And that is what i did, i really hoped director Darren Aronofsky would deliver something stronger. We are talking about the director of Requiem Of A Dream, The Wrestler and The Swan, so we know he is very talented. Unfortunately this is not one of his best motion pictures, it´s ok but does not deliver enough to hold together all the way. If you are a religious person, i think Noah might appeal to you, if you are not, my advice is to buy Hobo With A Shotgun on blu-ray, and hear Rutger Hauer bless you with the word Hallelujah, and fire of a shotgun on 2 thugs. Now that is my kind of church.

Rating: DD