Noah Reviews

Noah is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen in my life. This extremely personal, spiritual, and creative adaption shines from Darren Aronofsky's intended vision.

So, yeah... Noah.

No winning streaks last forever, not even Darren Aronofsky's. It was pretty much exactly what I feared it would be but with some angelic rock monster fantasy creatures thrown in to help the plot along.

Observations:

1. The great irony is that the rock creatures were there to make the movie's plot feasible (building the arc and defending it would have been impossible without them) but by adding them, it just made an already ridiculous piece of religious mythology even more ridiculous.

2. The most disappointing thing about this movie wasn't the story (amazingly) but that it is, by far, Aronofsky's least interesting film, visually. The only interesting visual pieces were the apocalyptic parts, so they were relying solely on sound and fury.

3. I spent the entire movie wondering where the fuck 125 million dollars went?!? (Shitty CG I guess!)

4. While juxtaposing meat eaters vs non meat eaters was a neat idea, it never quite worked out and in the end they went completely overboard making the meat eaters all seem like murderous psychopaths. Basically, it was the first big budget pro-vegan movie ever.

5. Since they insisted on using the term "the creator" for most of the film instead of "god", I thought that maybe this was going to create a cool duality where "the creator" could simply refer to the planet itself instead of a magical sky daddy... but before long they started referring to "he" and that pretty much shattered any interesting ambiguity it might have had.

6. Even after destroying the rest of the world, Gawd's "plan" still came down to two burly guys duking it out on the ark... lulz

7. As the film was wrapping up, I began to wonder if Noah himself wasn't meant to be a proxy for god, and if it wasn't him all along deciding the fate of humanity and working out all his latent sky daddy issues. Then I realized I was giving the film WAY too much credit. Yup... I really wanted this not to suck.

8. That was a crazy amount of acting talent given absolutely nothing to do.

Usually everyone knows what it's about after reading the title, but the thing is how much it will surprise us with newly initiated contents like visuals, story alteration, performance and finally 3D. There are many versions of 'Noah's Ark' story including animations. So I expected it wouldn't work as a full-length feature film, Especially in live-shot version. But got a good response by performing decently everywhere. A perfect way to say about the movie is it was an ancient version of the movie '2012'. No science involved, only fantasies. Remember the character Noah was not exactly a good guy either bad in this story. He was portrayed in such a dark and complicated personality who take the responsibility that was given to him by the creator.

After witnessing his father's murder, now Noah is a grown up lives with his wife and three children along with one adopted daughter. One night he dreams with the unclear visuals. The next day he visits his grandfather to know more what the dream is about. Then he comes to know the message and prepare to face it. In between, a war commence waged by a king to save humanity. Who wins, who loose and how it all happens comes later with a few brutal incidents.

I like this director's 'The Wrestler' and 'Black Swan' than his other movies which were a massive hit. I expected this particular story could be more realistic manner, but I was wrong and it was a fairy-tale kind of approach made for grown ups. Why it suits only for adults? Because so many elements were too rude, especially inclusion of all the intense violences were not in favor of children to view. Other than that there's no nudity or sex scenes. All this is because of Noah was exhibited in such a strange shade. That end scene where Noah was drunk I can't even believe it. In the last half an hour Russell Crowe's role turns into what he did in 'Les Misérables' versus Emma Watson (Hermione, who was defenseless).

The rain has stopped but the creator has not smiled.

This is the story that must inspire the viewers, though it won't do that. One thing it did right was it was completely a different. Awesome visuals and really I enjoyed watching it in digital 3D. The cast was not bad at all, as being in a main role Russell Crowe had large portion and others were just into it to show their presence. Overall, I feel it was taken as a challenge by the filmmaker, but a well done work, definitely not offensive, maybe slightly regarding religious perspective. Entertainment wise, it was a better movie, especially for a film adaptation. In my opinion, I believe it is okay to see at once.

This has good reviews? Seriously?
One of the worst films I ever wasted time on.
No good acting performances, and let me spare you the special "à la Transformer" effects, which are horrendous.

Oh, visually speaking, it's stunning. But script-wise, performance-wise, it's cr@p.

If this movie was released in 2013, i would easily say it's my favorite movie of the year, also Darren Aronofsky best work.
I was so excited about this movie, but i never thought that it would be that good, seriously Russell Crowe was fantastic, he was charming, strong and cruel, Jennifer Connelly delivered a beautifully, heartbreaking performance, Emma Watson was shockingly good, along with the equally good performances by Logan Lerman and Douglas Booth.
The movie was visually stunning in a way that you can't really ask for more than what you see, Darren Aronofsky Co-wrote, Co-Produced and Directed this movie, which makes him up there with martin scorsese and other wonderful film makers, and lets not forget the ballsy decision of making a biblical epic that would eventuality be a "Controversial" movie.
The story was strong and beautiful, and my favorite scene is when Noah starts telling the story of Genesis through a beautifully well executed music and stunning visuals, and there was some seriously beautiful shots through out the movie along with Clint Mansell music.
I loved every frame and i have no idea why people are complaining.

It's good to see another epic biblical story make it onto the big screen. The director is known for making interesting works and the cast is full of great choices. It does take many liberties of it's own to make it appeal to a larger audience. The violence is a bit brutal and uncomfortable in some scenes. I think visually this movie is remarkable to look at. I find it interesting that they mostly use the title "The Creator" instead of God. I like the scene where Noah is telling the Genesis story and we see the world growing and changing. The performances were top grade. I would have to say there is not a bad apple amongst the cast. It was definitely well approached and executed. I think this one is a bit underrated. It was just fantastic.

Before seeing Noah on the big screen, initial expectations were a mixed bag. Aronofsky’s auteurist style through glowing visual spectacle and his own psychological visions of life would make Noah stand out. However, because we had yet to see a spectacular Biblical adaptation of Noah’s Ark and that Aronofsky made minor adjustments to develop his own interpretation, the faithfulness to the original tale had been uncertain. This is primarily due to Hollywood centralising spectacle vision these days above plot concepts and character development. Still, it is an Aronofsky film and the majority of his work had become successful. Noah took a different turn from any other Noah adaptation, if not any Biblical film, than we have seen in a long time as it focuses more about the consequences of evil among humanity, which we can understand in real life, and expresses an important message - the world that was created isn’t a bad place, it’s the people in it.


Aronofsky has always been a creative auteur in bridging a characters’ vision of their fantasies through imagination and reality, whether psychologically in Black Swan and Requiem For A Dream or visually in The Fountain. The Genesis tale of Noah and his Ark is vital to Aronofsky’s auteurist style as the story illustrates on a visual scale, the history of mankind and formation of the Earth, whilst also focusing on the consequences of mankind and psychological viewpoint of Noah. Details leading to the events are told in a prologue in a unique animation, similar to Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part I. The fact it was done in this style allows viewers to imagine those occurrences, such as Adam and Eve as well as Cain and Abel, for themselves. The animation also recreates history, at least according to the Bible, and makes it appear more supernatural, representing a significance of Heaven and Hell. Aronofsky also applied a superb stop-motion sequence depicting the history of the universe and evolution of life which could possible serve as historical theories regarding Earth’s formation. He also uses multiple landscape shots of Earth to signify it as pre-historical and examine the naturalistic beauty of the world, though damaged by mankind. Nevertheless, Aronofsky has always been an artistic director and his work on Noah would perhaps be his most innovative, visually, and deserves critical acclaim for yet another triumph.


Once again, we are witnessing Russell Crowe in another historical drama playing a leading figure. From Maximus and Robin Hood and now to Noah, Crowe delivers a performance that is extraordinary that bridges heroism and psychoanalysis. Very much like how Aronofsky had co-written the script, Crowe expressed Noah as a far more analytical character than he had been before and reveals the previously overlooked concepts of human conscience. Crowe is evidently a superior leading, powerful star in historical films that emphasise on human drama and thankfully, his performance as Noah could be about as faithful to the Bible. Jennifer Connelly portrays his wife Naameh, who may be an underdeveloped character but is simply represented as the mother of the family. Emma Watson’s career just got even better with another mature performance as Ila who, to a certain extent, becomes as important to the film as Noah himself as the film progresses. With more analysis, it could be possible that it’s secretly Watson’s film more than Crowe’s. Meanwhile, Ray Winstone has been overshadowed throughout his films these days but his role as Tubal-cain is possibly one of his biggest roles to date. It may not have been entirely relevant, but similar to half of his name, he reflected the evil of mankind at the time which became essential for the flood. Logan Lerman, who ironically starred with Watson in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, makes a surprisingly good appearance in the film as Noah’s second son Ham and Anthony Hopkins, who seems to play the oldest character in high-budget productions these days, added further sophistication into the film as Noah’s grandfather Methuselah.


Aronofsky takes an interesting turn with Noah as he focuses less on satisfying religious folk with Biblical contents with its main emphasis being on human drama, psychoanalysis of the human mind and the consequences of evil. Aronofsky utilises his own unique visionary style as an auteur and applies human drama to this Genesis tale better than any other previous adaptation. Thus, Noah is a beautifully filmed, well-performed and uniquely written success which deserves its place among Aronofsky’s best films to date and that he could be a strong candidate to adapt another Biblical tale in the future.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Hands up who doesn't know the story! :) When you're doing a tale so engrained in our culture, you've really got to bring something special if you're going to stand out from the crowd. And thankfully, this film does. :) But to explain the genius of it, I might have to give some minor spoilers.
What holds it all together is Noah himself. I still think Russell Crowe is miscast, but I just adore the way the character's written. He's more of an antihero in this version, who believes that God has tasked him with making sure humanity doesn't survive, so that the Earth will be pure again.
Oh, and they never actually call Him God in this version, instead referring to Him as "the Creator". That's the other thing I really love about this movie: it doesn't attach itself strictly to Christianity. Instead, it seems to agree with me that the core of all religions in general is morality.
There's also a great bit of symbolism involving a snakeskin.
It's a movie that acknowledges both the good and the bad at the roots of human nature, putting both the two in constant battle, and ultimately reaffirmed my faith in humanity.

My rating: 75%

At last, Darron Aronofsky was allowed to make a big blockbuster and, of course, I was really eager to check the end-result. Eventually, he didn’t go for the easy path and decided to go all the way and direct a massive biblical epic. To be honest, even though I was quite impressed, I’m still not quite sure what to make of the whole thing and I will probably re-watch it at some point in the future to make up my mind for good. First of all, it was visuallly impressive. I mean, throughout the movie, you get some mystical imagery but he managed to give it some really intriguing look and you really get the feeling that you are watching something out of this world. I have to admit it, I’m not a religious person, in the contrary, and I'm not sure I actually really cared about this ancient tale but I have always been fascinated by the concept of religion and this movie definitely gave some food for thought. Indeed, even though the scale was huge, the whole thing is basically about Noah himself and the struggles he has to face. How does he know exactly what his creator has meant him to do? He simply doesn’t and becomes pretty messed up in the process. Indeed, while building the ark, all the animals come automatically so that was pretty easy but what about mankind? How do you decide to let millions of people to die? Did they all deserve this fate? From that point, Noah is eaten by guilt and becomes pretty much a fanatical doomsday despot who decides that even his family should die. And that’s when the movie gets really fascinating and shows the difficult concept behind any faith and religion. Indeed, men are made of flesh and bones, they have feelings and even if you do something good, should you feel good about it, should you be proud? Noah did something terrible and he was even planning to kill his grand-children but he would save the planet in the process so that might be ok? Furthermore, who is he to decide who should live and who should die? I also enjoyed the way Ray Winstone developed some pretty interesting theories like if the creator gave us so many mighty gifts/powers, it is probably to use them, isn’t it? And after all, aren’t we dominating the world as it is nowadays? That’s some very great stuff and still, somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that the whole thing was not flawless. For example, the way Logan Lerman finds a girl was completely phony and also the way Anthony Hopkins had a major influence on those events didn’t work very well either. Futhermore, their genetic pool seems to be terribly limited to repopulate the Earth (does it mean that the youngest boy will have to be a bigamist and have sex with both his nieces (hopefully, not at the same time...) ?). Of course, you could say it was God's will but I don’t buy it as it is one of the major weaknesses in all religions in general. Still to conclude, it is quite a thoughtful epic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Darren Aronosfky’s work.

"My father said that one day, if man continued in his ways, the Creator would annihilate this world..."

In spite of what Paramount's marketing campaign would have you believe, 2014's Noah is not Darren Aronofsky selling out with a dumb mainstream blockbuster. On the contrary, this was a long-gestating passion project for the filmmaker, and the product is unmistakably an Aronofsky effort. Incredibly audacious and ambitious, it's a magnificent realisation of the well-worn story of "Noah's Ark," though it's definitely not for all tastes. Noah will become one of 2014's most polarising films (this reviewer witnessed a number of walkouts), as Aronofsky's vision is bleak and brutal - it's much too dark to be confused with a children's fairy tale. Trailers have been selling an entirely different motion picture, with Paramount foregrounding the blockbuster-ish moments as much as possible, of which there is maybe ten minutes' worth in the movie's entire 140-minute duration. Trust me, you don't need to be religious to get swept up in this involving drama which stands as one of Aronofsky's finest achievements.

The last descendent of Adam's good son Seth, Noah (Russell Crowe) lives in fear of the current state of the Earth, doing his utmost to protect his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and their three sons. Meanwhile, Adam's sinful son Cain has beget evil across the world, leading many to assume that God - referred to as The Creator - has long abandoned the world. Experiencing a vision of Earth consumed by water, Noah concludes that God plans to destroy the world, hoping to start afresh and wash away the filth of humankind. Travelling to confer with his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), Noah is given clarity for his task, setting out to build an ark on which he can survive the flood and save two of each animal. For the gargantuan task, Noah enlists the help of a group of fallen angels known as The Watchers, who are trapped in the form of rock monsters. The family also adopt orphan Lla (Emma Watson), who maintains a relationship with Noah's son Shem (Douglas Booth) but feels uneasy about starting a family. As the ark takes shape, Noah is presented with a problem in the form of Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), who plots to steal Noah's vessel for his large army of sinners.

Aronofsky does something remarkable with Noah: he turns the utterly unbelievable biblical tale (Ricky Gervais has famously pointed out how far-fetched it is) into a palatable, plausible story. Although there are religious overtones and many of the proceedings hinge on the belief that God exists, Aronofsky keeps the picture strangely grounded and answers several queries about the feasibility of this story. For instance, the ark is predominantly built by The Watchers over the course of a decade, making the feat seem oddly possible. Plus, God actually sends the animals to the ark, and they hibernate while on-board to prevent the need for food.

Christians may try to deny it, but the bible was far crazier than many of us remember, and Noah embraces this insanity. Fallen angels become personified in stone giants, and Aronofsky pulls no punches in his depiction of this period. Early reports suggested that Noah was to be an R-rated version of the biblical story, and it certainly feels so. The trailers severely whitewash the movie's content, as Aronofsky never shies away from delving into the ugly side of human nature. Some trimming may have been conducted to ensure a PG-13 rating, but it's astonishing how much the movie gets away with in its current form (and how it got a 12A from the BBFC is a mystery). There is savage violence here, with visceral sprays of blood and gory killings, including the image of a young girl being trampled to death. And the horror of the flood is by no means downplayed, as the soundtrack becomes filled with the terrified screams of those not aboard the ark. It's haunting stuff.

It's frankly astounding that Aronofsky was able to smuggle a motion picture like Noah into cinemas, especially bearing in mind the narrative's thematic undercurrents and messages. Indeed, Noah has a lot to say about the dangers of blind faith, about God's ferocity, and about the wickedness of humankind. Christians will no doubt find the movie utterly offensive, as the central message is that mankind's continued existence today was an act of defiance against God. Rather than an uplifting story, this is a heavy drama, and it delves into the harsh choices that Noah is forced to make. Noah survives the flood as a broken man racked with guilt, and he goes to such dark places along the way that it's often hard to relate to him as a protagonist. Even though the flood is the production's centrepiece, the chaos is all over by the 100-minute mark, leaving the final half-hour to work through a gripping psychological thriller routine aboard the ark. It admittedly feels a bit overlong by the end, but the story is nevertheless wrapped up in a glorious fashion, leading to a satisfying conclusion that doesn't feel like a cop-out.

Noah is positively epic in scope, with massive sets and vast locations. The special effects range from excellent to merely passable, with some of the CGI beasties looking a tad too obvious on occasion. Nevertheless, Aronofsky's filmmaking is predictably solid. The arrival of the flood is downright gripping, made all the more nail-biting due to the patient character development that preceded it. It's at least ten minutes of non-stop chills, and it's impossible to tear your eyes away from the screen. Furthermore, Noah is beset with Aronofsky's idiosyncrasies, with creative time-lapse sequences and a stunning vision of Adam and Eve. The movie also opens with a brilliant retelling of the Book of Genesis, with gorgeous CGI and brisk storytelling bringing us up to speed and giving motivation for God's wrath upon the Earth. Just as impressive are Noah's visions of the impending flood, which are incredibly disturbing.

Noah is also gifted with a magnificent cast, led by the Oscar-winning Crowe who's a perfect fit for this vision of the age-old character. On top of being tough and physically imposing, he additionally sells the deeper aspects of this role, nailing Noah's vulnerability and clearly conveying the ordeal's psychological effects on him. It's wonderful to see Crowe doing something like this after the tremendous misfire of Les Misérables. Connelly is just as strong, while the always-reliable Hopkins is charming and believable as Noah's grandfather. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Watson, who confidently handles the complex emotions that are asked of her. It's the type of role that she needed to move on from her Harry Potter image. Meanwhile, Winstone is a very memorable bad guy, and he has the right physicality to match Crowe in a brawl.

Paramount test-screened alternate versions of Noah without Aronofsky's knowledge or consent, which is understandable. Since this is an Aronofsky movie through-and-through, the executives likely shat themselves upon seeing the filmmaker's bleak vision take flight in the editing room, and knew it would be a tough sell to the mainstream. Reportedly, Aronofsky was granted final cut, which is very fortunate indeed. It's hard to imagine Noah being overly successful at the box office, but we can forever be glad that this motion picture exists. Take it from a devout Agnostic with no interest in religion: Noah is a visionary masterpiece of immense power. It sticks with you long after the end credits have expired. We have never seen an epic like this before, nor have we ever seen such a gritty retelling of this story.

8.5/10