Impressive visuals in polarizing film ‘Noah’
Rating: 3/5 stars
It is no secret that “Noah” is a controversial film. Religious people are mad that it is not completely true to the Bible. Critics who defend the film say there has to be some deviation from the source material or else it would be boring. While it is not necessarily an “evil” film that takes God out of the story, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth as someone who has gone to church my whole life.
I actually agree with critics who say a movie cannot be completely true to the Bible. There is not a lot of description of how the culture was or what the characters are like in the text. It simply tells that the world was wicked, and Noah built a boat with two of every animal to float when the entire earth floods. There certainly needs to be creativity to make the story believable.
My problem with this film is the same that I had with “Iron Man 3.” The trailer made it look awesome. It was going to feature Marvel’s version of the Joker. He was going to be the villain everyone talks about for years to come. There is a twist that ruins everything. What I got was a Joker, but not in the way I expected. It deviates from the comic books in a way that makes a mockery of the characters. When watching it, I could not help but think it would have been so much better had Marvel just stayed true to that character.
This movie does the same thing. In the Bible, the only description of the Noah character is found in Genesis 6:9 of the King James version: “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”
In the film, he completely misinterprets everything. He thinks God is sending the flood because humanity should not be carried on. The reason he thinks he built the ark was not so much to protect him and his family as it is to protect the animals, which are the only innocent beings on earth.
A big portion of the conflict in the film is caused by this erroneous belief of his and it is frustrating to watch, especially having grown up with a certain idea of how the character should believe. Someone who “walked with God” should at least understand humans are above animals in his sight.
This is not me trying to preach to anyone. I am simply stating this in reference to the source material. Think of religious people as devoted fans of the Bible comparable to comic book fanatics. While “Noah” still has a message about God in it, the portrayal of the protagonist is polarizing. This is not unlike “Iron Man 3,” which also portrays a certain character in a way that made a lot of people mad.
Thinking of the movie as just a movie, it is just OK. Disregarding the deviations from the Bible, the characters did not seem very fleshed-out. Noah is a man who has very few emotions outside of doom and gloom. The rest of the characters are just kind of there to keep the story moving along.
However, the visual effects themselves are good enough to warrant seeing it once or twice. The world that was created by writer/director Darren Aronofsky features some odd-looking rock monsters that were cool to look at because they appear to be animated by stop motion.
The scene in which the flood starts is also visually impressive. It captures the sheer amount of epic that Aronofsky was going for. There is one shot during that sequence that shows a mountain. Without giving spoilers, it is a very interesting shot that gives a different perspective to the Bible story.
I give this three out of five stars. It is not necessarily worth seeing in theatres, especially for those who are religious. However, it is definitely worth a look when it comes to DVD and Blu-ray.
Content: Rated PG-13. There is action violence throughout the film, involving stabbings and a silhouette of heads being bashed. At least one scene shows someone’s head being bashed on-screen with some blood splatter. There is some blood throughout the film, but splatters are not as explicitly shown as they would be in an R-rated movie. There are also some disturbing images. A couple of parts deal with sexuality, but it does not show anything. It is not something I would recommend seeing with young children.
– Christopher Campbell is an Aggie film buff who has written reviews for several publications. He has been involved in the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) and Psi-Chi. He is currently majoring in psychology and minoring in Portuguese. Send any feedback to topherwriter@gmail.com, check out his blog at criticalchristopher.blogspot.com or follow him on Twitter @ChrisCampbell02.