WARNING! This review contains spoilers!
Well, going into this movie I had been warned that it was a bit... odd, but I wanted to view it myself to draw my own conclusions.
The first half of the film was fairly well done. I was a bit unsure about their portrayal of the Watchers but afterward I realized it was actually somewhat interesting and creative. The scenes were beautifully filmed with some breathtaking scenery and very lifelike costumes and sets that made you really feel you were there. The warm glow of the central fire in the ark that showed off the immense expanse of its interior was a very nice touch.
However, it started getting weird just before they were set to depart on the ark... I had dismissed some of the earlier deviations from the story as reasonably-acceptable artistic liberty in order to add some level of interest. This included the before-mentioned Watchers (both their strange appearance and their siding with and helping of Noah), the murder of Lamech, the snake-skin artifact, and the fact that God didn't ever actually communicate with Noah beyond a couple vague dreams with bizarre imagery. But about halfway through the movie, suddenly Ham is considering rebelling against his father, a bad guy gets on the ark, Ila receives magical healing from Methuselah and pregnant on the ark, it's made to seem like God never intended on letting Noah and his family repopulate the earth, and then Noah seems like an absolute crazy man for believing that God (whom still never says a WORD in the movie to clearly define anything of his will) desires them to all perish as punishment for sharing in the sin of Adam and Eve. He thinks God intended to only save the animals and that he and his family would just live out their lives and die without having children. He believes this so much that he promises he will murder his grandchild if it is a girl. I mean I know that maybe they were trying to include a bit of the sacrifices other people in the Bible were asked to make in devotion to God, but it all felt very much like Noah was literally insane.
Finally, when the ark reaches land and Noah has opted to disobey God just a second before killing two newborn granddaughters, he kinda becomes a weird hermit from his family on the top of Mt. Ararat and drinks himself until he's naked (which seems to happen a lot in the Bible...). There's no joy in finding land or receiving the promise of God that he will never cause another flood to wipe out mankind... the ending is depressing and the whole thing just fizzles out.
So, in conclusion, I feel that a movie that had a lot of potential became the victim of its director's desire to make every story into an unbearable tragedy with a collection of deep concepts that make you keep trudging through it for more. It does definitely feel like Aronofsky wanted to first tell the story of how the human race deserves to be extinct for its sinful corruption that is inherent even in the best of us, but it could have been done a bit more subtly. It's very sad, some level of action that gets pointless by the end, with a rather skewed version of the story that I believe most Christians would frown upon. The pluses are beautiful cinematography, costume design, and set design, as well as some decent acting and creative concepts.
Well, going into this movie I had been warned that it was a bit... odd, but I wanted to view it myself to draw my own conclusions.
The first half of the film was fairly well done. I was a bit unsure about their portrayal of the Watchers but afterward I realized it was actually somewhat interesting and creative. The scenes were beautifully filmed with some breathtaking scenery and very lifelike costumes and sets that made you really feel you were there. The warm glow of the central fire in the ark that showed off the immense expanse of its interior was a very nice touch.
However, it started getting weird just before they were set to depart on the ark... I had dismissed some of the earlier deviations from the story as reasonably-acceptable artistic liberty in order to add some level of interest. This included the before-mentioned Watchers (both their strange appearance and their siding with and helping of Noah), the murder of Lamech, the snake-skin artifact, and the fact that God didn't ever actually communicate with Noah beyond a couple vague dreams with bizarre imagery. But about halfway through the movie, suddenly Ham is considering rebelling against his father, a bad guy gets on the ark, Ila receives magical healing from Methuselah and pregnant on the ark, it's made to seem like God never intended on letting Noah and his family repopulate the earth, and then Noah seems like an absolute crazy man for believing that God (whom still never says a WORD in the movie to clearly define anything of his will) desires them to all perish as punishment for sharing in the sin of Adam and Eve. He thinks God intended to only save the animals and that he and his family would just live out their lives and die without having children. He believes this so much that he promises he will murder his grandchild if it is a girl. I mean I know that maybe they were trying to include a bit of the sacrifices other people in the Bible were asked to make in devotion to God, but it all felt very much like Noah was literally insane.
Finally, when the ark reaches land and Noah has opted to disobey God just a second before killing two newborn granddaughters, he kinda becomes a weird hermit from his family on the top of Mt. Ararat and drinks himself until he's naked (which seems to happen a lot in the Bible...). There's no joy in finding land or receiving the promise of God that he will never cause another flood to wipe out mankind... the ending is depressing and the whole thing just fizzles out.
So, in conclusion, I feel that a movie that had a lot of potential became the victim of its director's desire to make every story into an unbearable tragedy with a collection of deep concepts that make you keep trudging through it for more. It does definitely feel like Aronofsky wanted to first tell the story of how the human race deserves to be extinct for its sinful corruption that is inherent even in the best of us, but it could have been done a bit more subtly. It's very sad, some level of action that gets pointless by the end, with a rather skewed version of the story that I believe most Christians would frown upon. The pluses are beautiful cinematography, costume design, and set design, as well as some decent acting and creative concepts.
