Quickie Review:
Noah is a new epic that is based on the biblical story, and helmed by director Darren Aronofsky. The story is about a man who is tasked with building an ark to save the innocent, from the cleansing of the world by a great flood. With a stellar cast of Russell Crowe (Noah), Jennifer Connelly (Naameh), Ray Winstone (Tubal-cain), Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Anthony Hopkins, and Nick Nolte, Noah truly had everything right to be an incredible movie. Unfortunately, the pacing of the third act falters and all the character development of the main cast is spiked up to the extreme, rendering them completely un-relatable. In the end, this is quite a forgettable movie that doesn't need to be seen from a purely movie quality perspective.
Full Review:
I feel that I should state this before I go any further – I do not affiliate myself with any religion, nor am I against religion. This review comes purely from someone who loves movies in general. Nothing more, nothing less.
With that out of the way, let's move on with the review. In the movie, Noah (Russell Crowe) lives in a dark world that is corrupted by wickedness. He receives messages from the creator, showing him visions of a great flood that covers the whole world. Noah must now build an ark with his family to save the innocent (all wildlife other than mankind).
I'll start off with some things that I did like about this movie. Normally Darren Aronofsky is known for tackling deeply personal stories that are more of a character study. It is nice to see him break from his norm and make a movie of a much grander scale, while still bringing his touch when it comes to developing his characters, especially with Noah. Russell Crowe should also be commended for his great performance. Just from his facial expression, you can tell how much burden he feels weighing on his shoulders. The world that is created is extremely well realized. The atmosphere is dark and drab, and you really feel the rotting air of the world. Overall the movie was captivating and well- paced
right up until the third act, after the flood scene.
Third act is really where everything just falls apart. Now I won't spoil anything, for anyone who wants to watch the movie. Still I need to mention few things to explain why things go wrong for this movie. For some reason the whole cast makes a sudden shift from balanced and complex characters, to be completely driven and defined by their base instincts. So for example, Noah becomes completely blinded by his devotion and divine purpose that he almost becomes villainous. These changes in character comes so suddenly that it feels out of place. Also the movie comes to such a snail crawling pace that I felt the need to check my watch a few times.
This was a movie that had the potential to be a great character driven movie, set in an epic scale. It did show this promise for the most part in the beginning. However, a sudden change in tone and pacing issues ended up making it feel like it was dragging on. I say skip this movie, because even if you watch it, you will forget about it in a few days.
