Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Noah (2014)

Hey, were you ever reading the Biblical account of Noah and thought to yourself, "You know, this story could be improved by . . . "

  • Noah as a crazed vegan and environmentalist on a murder spree?
  • Barbarian hordes?
  • Giant rock monster-angels?
  • Magic snake skins?
  • Methuselah serving psychedelic tea?
  • Ham's horny teenaged shenanigans?
BUT did you get to the part where Noah gets drunk and passes out naked, and his sons are like, "Gross, Dad" and think, "Now we're talking!" 

Then has Darren Aronofsky got a movie for you!

I don't really have anything else to say about this movie. It's Aronofsky, so it looks stunning, and I dig all prehistoric CGI animals (one of them had scales made of bark!).

But Russell Crowe plays the most dour Noah imaginable. He also ages a good 20 to 30 years over the course of the movie while his wife, Jennifer Connelly, looks exactly the same from beginning to end.

Mostly -- strangely -- it's about how Ham (Logan Lerman) really wants to get laid, world-ending-deluge be damned. I guess you could say it's a movie about the practical difficulties of faith and interpreting the will of God, about knowing who to trust when they say that they know the will of God, and about seeing your way through disaster for the promise of brighter future.

But mostly it's about how Ham's kind of a d-bag, and Noah's entire family should learn to recognize the opportunity to tie up a psycho killer when they have it.