Director: Darren Aronofsky.
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Douglas Booth.
Running Time: 138 minutes.
Certificate: 12A.
Synopsis: Noah (Russell Crowe) receives a message from The Creator that the world will suffer a terrible flood and all of mankind will perish. He must build an ark to save the animals and his family, but Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) has other ideas.
“Ha!” you scoff. “A film based on Noah? Everyone knows what happens: a message from God, a big boat, some animals, blah blah blah.” But hold your horses: chances are, you don’t know Darren Aronofsky’s interpretation of the tale of Noah. Sure, it retains some key elements – the message from God, the big boat and some animals – but there’s also a few giant stone angels, forbidden pregnancies and Cockney gangsters thrown in for good measure, because why not?
Indeed, ‘why not’ seems to have been the phrase firmly planted in Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel’s brains while penning the script to NOAH, which takes a great cast and makes a not-great-at-all movie. Russell Crowe plays the eponymous chosen one, who receives a message from God that man’s evil will be purged from the world by way of a flood. And so, he sets about building an ark to preserve all the creatures of the world, with two of every animal.
While the Creationist aspects of the film must of course be taken at face value, NOAH still requires more than a simple suspension of disbelief. Were the ark to have been as watertight as the script, we would instead be watching something more akin to a TITANIC remake, with the boat promptly sinking along with the rest of mankind – and any respect for Aronofsky’s once-great career, it seems.
Noah and his family are strict vegetarians, and yet they live in a barren wasteland of rock and dust, apparently surviving without food or water. Middle child Ham (Logan Lerman) gets his priorities right by managing to keep on top of an eternal buzz cut, while the rest of his family don’t exactly have many grooming problems. On top of that, the people have somehow developed welder’s tools, including a mask, and there are GIANT STONE ANGELS. It’s hard to take any of it seriously, though it’s clearly attempting to take itself in such a manner. However Aronofsky does elicit some good performances from his cast. Crowe is on top form as always and actually makes it possible for us to connect emotionally with his character, while Emma Watson gives her eyebrows a rest and does some genuine acting for once.
But then Ray Winstone shows up rambling about ‘oi guv’nor’ this and ‘sixes and sevens’ that and we’re pulled right back out again, forced to abandon any emotional investment we may have managed to sustain in the film by this point. It’s not that Winstone is a bad actor, he’s just a poor choice for a film that’s supposedly set ten generations after Adam and Eve – when exactly did the human race have the time to develop a range of accents? Luckily, his role is limited compared to that of Crowe and the like, and the second half of the film (ironically the part that doesn’t feature in the Bible) is easily the better, with the stakes raised and most of the ridiculousness, ahem, washed away.
Sadly, that isn’t enough to save NOAH. An overly long exercise in Hollywood stupidity that should have stayed in the pages of the Old Testament where it could actually be taken more seriously, there’s Noah way you’ll see a worse film this year.
[usr=1] NOAH is in cinemas now.
