'A great flood is coming. We build a vessel to survive the
fall. We build an Ark.'
Noah is the new
biblical big-budget adaptation from the director of one of my favourite dramas:
The Wrestler. The story is the highly
interpreted story of Noah as a conflicted man who believes he has been chosen
to build an ark by ‘the creator’. Russell Crowe stars as the title character
with Jennifer Connolly as his wife, Logan Lerman and Douglas Booth as his two
oldest sons and Emma Watson as his adopted daughter. The cast is wide and also
includes Ray Winstone as the main antagonist and Anthony Hopkins as Noah’s grandfather.
To start off I highly enjoyed this film simply by the amount
of balls it must have taken to make. Imagine the biggest fanboys of all time
getting annoyed about the changes in a superhero origin story then times it by
one hundred. I can imagine that Darren Aronofsky knew who he was going to
irritate when making this film and I love the fact that he made it anyway. Noah takes plenty of liberties in term
of filmmaking, but when stripped down the basic Noah story is completely intact. Aronofsky was brave to make this
film and I believe he did it right and was perfectly respectful to the source
material, in my opinion.
The cast is great overall with fine performances from every
main cast member. As the title may suggest this is Russell Crowe’s film and he is
a one man machine when it comes to acting. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind
who was the lead as Crowe simply chews up the scenery with his sheer skill. You
get this sense from him that he is a conflicted and damaged character,
especially by the film’s conclusion. I suppose what I enjoyed so much about the
film’s story and characters is that no-one is one-dimensional as every
character is conflicted in some way.
The only thing I disapprove of is the way Noah seems to be being marketed as this huge epic. There is some of that included in the story (in the form of an action scene reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) its more of a character piece than anything else. The film is also very long, now I didn't find this as too much as a problem because I was totally engrossed in the story but as I can imagine some people becoming bored it may become an issue.
I honestly thought this film was great and I highly enjoyed
the licence Aronofsky took while making it. Even down to the epic rock
creatures he included. I can’t see an adaptation of the Noah story being as
interesting as this one. I give Noah:
8/10.
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