Noah (2014)

[baumer]

Discuss

[baumer]

I have no idea what Aronofsky was going for here, I have no idea what kind of drugs he was smoking and I have no idea what the hell this movie is trying to say.  What I do know is that this is one of dumbest, most ridiculous big budget films I've seen.  There's taking liberties with a story, there's adding your own plot pieces, there twisting and turning the words to make the film better, and then there's what Aronsofsky did with this.  There isn't one bit of biblical reality to this film.  I'm not going to get into whether or not the Bible is believable and all that, but strictly from a creative standpoint, this is a mess.  A fucking mess.  Here is some of what happens:

 

The Ents from TTT apparently got their start in Biblical times as they were once God's messengers.  Then they made God angry and their fate was to become talking trees which end up helping Noah build the ark.

 

God doesn't talk to Noah in this, he leaves it all for him to figure everything out.  Noah thinks that all mankind, including his family, is to be wiped out from the flood.  A simple Google search shows that God told Noah that he and his family and their wives would all be spared because they were looked upon favorably.  But not in here.  Noah is basically Jack Torrance in this film.  I kept waiting for him to grab and axe and say, "Here's Noah!"

 

A human being actually stows away on the boat and brainwashes one of the kids to want to kill Noah.  

 

One of the wives, Ila, played by Emma Watson becomes pregnant and Noah wants to kill the children because that is Gods will.

 

Noah's grandfather is magic.  He cures Ila of her barrenness by touching her belly.  

 

There are many more scenarios here that are just too much to possibly take the film seriously.  

 

Emma is probably the best part of the film and the rest of the acting is good as well, but the liberties the story takes and the absolute silliness of the script makes this one really hard to like in any way shape or form.  As I said, forget the religious furor over it, forget the blasphemy, that stuff just makes me laugh.  But you can't ignore how silly and downright stupid the whole film is.

 

4/10

[4815162342]

Looks like a fair amount of the stuff called out in the early script review from last year was spot on

[baumer]

I was flabergasted.  I'm not sure if any of you know or really care but I'm not very religious.  In fact, I'm leaning towards agnostic.  But that doesn't change the fact that this script went in the absolute worst possible direction.  It's like there were three forks in the road.  One fork was a word for word retelling, which would be kind of boring perhaps.  Then there was the fork where you could make up some shit and make the story better for the screen.  

 

And then there was whatever fork Aronsfsky chose.  

[Gopher]

FINALLY, baumer and I disagree on something again.

 

I thought this was a stunning achievement. Wildly ambitious and successful in executing most of that ambition. They effectively dramatized the story before and after the creation of the arc, and I found the resulting emotion palpable. 

 

And baumer: Noah thinking God would wipe out all of humanity creates much more interesting drama than God immediately sparing Noah and his family. It's a story and Aronofsky had to translate it, these changes in the details of the story happen. 

[baumer]

Except it paints Noah as a raving lunatic, Gopher.  

 

Besides all the liberties the film took with the story, I just simply found it too much to believe.  I lost all interest in the characters.  I didn't buy what Aronofsky did with the script and it left be flapping my lips three or four times in the film.

 

Glad you liked it, we can finally "hate" each other again.  

[4815162342]

What is interesting is the difference between Jewish and Christian scholarship on the Noah story. Christian writings paint Noah as a very righteous, saintly person. Jewish writings have taken a much more nuanced view on Noah as simply the best of an otherwise bad bunch, for example pointing out that Noah never tried to save anyone other than his direct family. He simply just did what he was told to do (whereas other, later Biblical figures actually tried to persuade God to be merciful, save people, etc).So everything I have heard points towards the film skewing off from the Jewish portrayal as opposed to the Christian one, which makes sense since Aronofsky came from a Jewish home in NYC. While it's clear Aronofsky takes some heavy liberties and those liberties may in the execution overwhelm the film, I am pleased the depiction is closer to the original source than the gilded Christian one (being as I was marginally raised in a Jewish household).Might see this this weekend if I have time.

Edited March 28, 2014 by 4815162342

[baumer]

It's also way too long.  

[Noctis]

Gopher and baumer, how would you rank Emma's performance? A lot of reviews have been singling her out. 

[baumer]

She was the best part of the film imo.  She was alive and real and full of raw emotion.  If it weren't for her I'd have given it less than I did.

[Gopher]

She was pretty damn good. Crowe and Connelly were too. I don't think Noah is a lunatic or the film paints him out to be. I think he genuinely believes God wants humanity to perish, and he was right about the arc and the flood, so why not? But he's not blindly following God either. I love the scene in which he's asking the heavens for him to not kill his grandchildren, and I love that the epic fight between man and God is followed up by a personal, emotional conflict that is just as riveting and surprising.

[Hiccup]

Ugh I'm torn if I want to see this. I always like to read Baumers review before I see a movie because 99.9999% of the time I agree with him. This movie actually really interests me but I don't want to waste $10. 

Edited March 29, 2014 by Hiccup

[Noctis]

Ugh I'm torn if I want to see this. I always like to read Baumers review before I see a movie because 99.9999% of the time I agree with him. This movie actually really interests me but I don't want to waste $10. 

 

Oh God. 

[baumer]

Ugh I'm torn if I want to see this. I always like to read Baumers review before I see a movie because 99.9999% of the time I agree with him. This movie actually really interests me but I don't want to waste $10. 

 

I think you should see it.  It's definitely a film that didn't click with me but if you go on imdb, check out the reviews right now, they are pretty positive.  You might like it.

[Ozymandias]

Holy shit this movie felt like 5 hours long.  Its goofy and sometimes tedious whenever its not just boring/dull.  The only part I enjoyed was when the rock Ents were pummeling and stepping on the thousands of people that were trying to take the arc(probably because I was chuckling, which I'm sure wasn't intentional). 

 

I'm not religious so I didn't care about Biblical accuracy, but man this movie was a slog with no oomph.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Ozymandias

[4815162342]

I'm not religious so I didn't care about Biblical accuracy.

The way I see it, if you're not religious then you see the Bible as a work of fiction, which means you should judge Noah on the merits of being an adaptation of a fictitious work. So the "accuracy" should still play a role in determining whether the diversions and changes brought content sufficient to compensate for the "inaccuracy."So I'd treat it with the same critical eye as I treated Troy as an adaptation of the Iliad (which purported to be an actual depiction of deities mixing it up with men in a war filled with divine prophecy and whatnot). Edited March 29, 2014 by 4815162342

[Blankments]

Ugh I'm torn if I want to see this. I always like to read Baumers review before I see a movie because 99.9999% of the time I agree with him. This movie actually really interests me but I don't want to waste $10. 

Hiccup, I've read your CAYOM work, and honestly, this movie reminded me of some of your films in the best ways. I'd be shocked if you didn't like it.

 

This movie is flawed, in a sense. It's missing something. What that is, I don't know. What I do know is that Russell Crowe and Emma Watson give some of their best performances of their careers, after a weird opening half hour the film is non-stop tension, and once they get on the ark, it is a true masterpiece. It is missing something though... perhaps the weirdness of the rock giants being mostly unexplained, or the sometimes very poor CGI, or maybe the fact that the film presumes too much of the audience at points. Overall though, the movie's positives outweigh its negatives  and the movie is a must-see. A

[4815162342]

The funny thing is that Ben Affleck's character in Dogma was a former Watcher, so now imagine the Rock Ents from the movie with Affleck's face on it.Should be seeing this tomorrow.

Edited March 29, 2014 by 4815162342

[Ozymandias]

The way I see it, if you're not religious then you see the Bible as a work of fiction, which means you should judge Noah on the merits of being an adaptation of a fictitious work. So the "accuracy" should still play a role in determining whether the diversions and changes brought content sufficient to compensate for the "inaccuracy."

 

Well, its not an adaptation of the story of Noah at all, you could call it an original fantasy movie.  God is never even called God in this movie once, just "the creator".

[lilmac]

"Did you hear about the time an atheist tries to make a biblical movie?"

 

 

I give this film an F.  As Baumer mentioned, from a strictly creative standpoint, it is a cluster of a mess.  It's honestly not worth the time and effort to write a long review besides the fact it's being covered here.  From a biblical standpoint...OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS.  There are so many dramatic licenses taken here (either using extra-biblical material or the writer's own 'creativity') that I can confidently say this is not an adaptation of Noah.  It is a film that sparingly uses material from Genesis.  Aronofsky goes out of his way to take God out of the film.  Miracle workings occur via humans (and not God working through them either, nope, all man's doing), God is made out to be a merciless being who punishes beings for helping mankind, then there are the dramatic departures - it only takes a few years to build the ark, Ham and Japheth's wives are missing, there's a stowaway on the ark, I could go on and on on.  

 

Please do not see this movie.