Noah (2014)

     Aronofsky's Noah is an interesting beast. It aims to tell not just a large scale story but an entire biblical epic in the now standard just over two hour running time given to it and all other not guaranteed money making movies. Until a Director's cut comes out we won't know if Noah is a masterpiece marred by its editing or if it's more of a shoddy mess of scenes stitched together at the last minute but what I can assure you is that the final product that I just saw was pretty great as a whole but held back some by the age old story it's trying to tell.

     I won't go over the plot in detail (Come on you should know this by now if your above the age of 6) but what I will say is that it follows the bible story very closely. Adding in characters and set pieces to drive the visual quality from great to stunningly great. Our hero Noah (played by Fighting Around the World's own Russel Crowe) is tasked by god to build an Arc to save two of each animal so that God can flood the world and cleanse it evil humans . Where the movie differs from the simple story I remember is that he is helped by a rogue band of fallen angels who seek redemption, and is sieged by the Human King Tubal Descendant of Cain, played by Ray Winestone , who demands that humans get safe passage on the arc as opposed to animals.

     The two most interesting things the movie does are it's timeline and it's visuals. To levy the harsh reality that the drama portrays the visuals of the world and some of its inhabitants and distinctly fantastical creating a believable setting that could be an old pre-flood earth or just a simple fictional drama. It allows for enjoyment of both the religious and the non each interpreting the surreal world portrayed to them however they see fit. Everything is just grounded enough that it could have existed but nothing is thrown in your face to try and change your personal beliefs. I guess in a sense that's all this movie really had to accomplish ; tell the story of Noah's Arc without offending anyone and I'd say it did a good job of that. Portraying theoretical evolution right next to creationism with flashy visuals and beautiful scenery. I don't know where parts of this movie were filmed but I want to go there.

     The other thing it does well is detach yourself from the main character just like how he has to detach himself from the situation he's in. Pressured by his beliefs he constantly looks as though he wants to abandon the cause and sticks with it out of faith. It makes for a character you can get behind and empathize with without having to support all of his actions.

     The movie isn't flawless ( I mean you should go see it but it's not flawless), the rest of the cast don't really pull their weight as Noah's family they all kind of have single note plot device personalitys that make them seem bland until the scene their in is about them. It doesn't start getting in the way until the last Act of the movie but I will say if you can get through it all is well by the end. I would say that it runs too long and has some boring parts but I don't have a lot of ground to say that because I can't think of a lot of scenes I would have cut.

     All and all Noah turned out a lot better than I expected it to. I don't know if it's for everybody but given when they released it and how they've been marketing it I'm sure it'll do about as well as it deserves to.