Review: Noah (2014)

★★☆☆☆
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone

The name Noah conjures up tonnes of biblical talk, a song, or maybe even a little bit of chick-chat about The Notebook (but we can ignore that last one for now). We all know the story: Noah gets told by God that he is going to annihilate the world but he can't save all the animals that are worthy of saving so Noah has to help! 

So walking into the cinema I had certain preconceived notions about how good this film would, or even could, be. Personally I believe that stories in any religious book are not true, but rather cautionary tales designed to spread the word and inspire followers to do good. Even so, I have had a suspension of disbelief in tales that seem much more far fetched than this so I decided to give it a chance and allowed the epic trailers to draw me in.  

It started with an animation to give you some context which was really nicely done so it raised my hopes. Unfortunately the rest of the movie did not quite deliver on this. Visually, the world that was portrayed seemed somewhere between a graphic novel adaptation and a post-apocalyptic world. The latter of which was what they were going for. This completely shattered the suspension of disbelief for me. Not only was it quite clumsy in appearance but also for a story as well known and as scrutinized as this distractions from the story were just completely unnecessary. When the ark is submerged by water the geek in me couldn't help but feel like the ark would have been completely crushed. 


At the heart of this tale is the story of a family of three boys and a wife (Connelly), headed by Noah (Crowe). They take in a young girl, Ila (Watson), when they find her amongst a wreckage as a lone survivor. When speaking of stand-out performances Emma Watson has to be mentioned as she was positively distracting for all the wrong reasons. She wasn't by any means the worst thing in this, but having to watch an actor play a character you have to empathise with so dearly only to get annoyed by her, severely hinders any emotional connection you could build with the heart of this story. Being unable to attach myself to the heart of the story made the second half of the movie difficult to watch without shifting around and fidgeting. The entirety of the second half focuses on Noah's battle to do the Creator's work and whether this means the extinction of the human race and so it begins to drag quite heavily.  

Every great story has a fantastic bad guy. Tubal-Cain (WInstone) seems to be everything you would require of a biblical baddie on paper, but in actuality the character seemed somewhat lacking in any real substance. Winstone surpassed my expectations, although this may be because he was playing a sort of gang leader rather than the complexities of character. 

After succumbing to the slightly ridiculous nature of this film my favourite part has to be Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah. He was fantastic to watch. Hopkins is great as a guiding figure and for the few moments he inhabits the screen he is a joy to watch.

It was an interesting re-imagining of an old tale, but unfortunately it didn't quite work out. A huge shame for a movie that promised so much.