Noah

2014 Biblical epic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: It's exactly like the story of Noah according to the book of Genesis except with a lot more rock giants and a surlier titular Bible hero.

As a spiritual guy who doesn't quite believe in a literal interpretation of the Good Book, I had no problems with the storytelling. Well, except that it was all a little boring. The Watchers? Sure, I thought, "What the fuck are these giant rock things?" just like every Christian who saw this movie, maybe minus the fuck. Glowing snake skins, a scaly fox thing, a flower growing magically-quickly, Eden seeds, Ray Winstone sneaking onto the ark. Those things were all more annoying than the giant rock creatures. I didn't mind them at all except for the too-obvious computer effects. But Noah building that giant boat by himself? Come on. These rock dudes are a perfectly reasonable representation of divine intervention, aren't they? The performers' inflections made this seem like something made for the Lord of the Rings or 300 crowd. I hate those sort-of humorless voices, but I have no idea how I'd rather hear these characters talk. Russell Crowe is just the sort of burly distraction you'd expect him to be in something like this. He's great when he's just staring and definitely pulls off surliness. There's one great scene where the camera pulls back from a shot of Crowe's face half in darkness while screams from outside the ark are audible. I liked how this was a story of man's obsession with saving the world but not necessarily with saving humanity. It added an intense edge that makes this character and his story different than you'd expect. Some of this looks really good, especially the creation storytelling scene with computer effects gone awry. Of course, if I had to see Cain killing Abel one more time, I was going to club somebody to death myself. I also liked a cool dream sequence and any scene where there were sudden splashes of color in the mostly-spare and ground-colored world. Some time-lapse stuff that made the ark-building I was really looking forward to go by really quickly was also pretty cool. Of course, there's the whole Ray Winstone subplot and a superfluous Methuselah that drag this down a little, and it does get a little boring. And I don't know about you, but I really was disappointed in the lack of a giant animal orgy at the end of this. I kept hanging in there, knowing that this would end in an explosion of animal jism and a naked Russell Crowe, but it never happened. If you were planning on watching this only to see CGI-animals doing it, go ahead and pass.