Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah is a giant leap from the cult director’s previous films, which include such dark independent dramas as “Pi”, “Requiem For A Dream” and “The Wrestler.” His newest creation is a big budget epic starring A-listers Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Watson.
At the helm of the film’s retelling of the ancient narrative concerning God’s fateful destruction/renewal of earth and humankind by catastrophic flooding is Noah (Russell Crowe.)
Noah is the one man spared, leaving him burdened with prophetic responsibility along with his duties as husband and father.
How large scale should a director go in order to portray a culturally engrained biblical tale? How many details should be created to enhance the film’s structure? Aronofsky’s choice to rely heavily on the former takes away from the film, creating a convoluted mess that can be summed up by Noah’s description of earth at creation, “chaos in the water”.
Curiously, the film is at its best when it focuses on the original aspects of what Wikipedia defines as the “genesis flood narrative” found in Genesis chapters 6–9 of the Old Testament.
The use of digital animation to create the mass migration of animals into the ark and the hopeful rainbow message in the conclusion are beautifully executed, but these sublime moments are few and far between. Instead the director focuses too much on aspects of the story that were created in order to fit the film’s two-hour-plus time frame.
For example, fallen angels in the form of rock people befriend and protect Noah and his family because they fought against humankind alongside Noah’s great grandfather Methuselah — a grizzled Anthony Hopkins — to preserve creation after the falling out of Adam and Eve.
The clunky look of the creatures and the confusing storyline seem to be trying for a “Star Wars”/”Lord of the Rings” style that falls flat. Costumes, acting, and dialogue gets lost in the drab, dark lighting and unimaginative design of the ark, and the one-note acting of the lead characters becomes tedious.
The digital depiction of the massive flooding is expensive and accurate looking in scale, but is given less attention than the story line about Ila, Emma Watson’s rescued orphan character, which is head-scratching and out of place. The moments where Noah speaks to God and struggles with his lack of control over his own destiny are effective, but lost in the melodrama of his son’s search for a woman to bring on the Ark.
“Noah” had potential to be a great film but instead strays too far from the original biblical story, rendering the completed effort boring and uninspiring compared to the simple strength found in the original parable of one man’s unshakable faith in the face of ultimate adversity.