Noah

As long as Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell keep going back to the style of The Fountain, everything is in the best order, and I just marvel at how this well-known theme can be told purely through characters in epic settings. And it doesn't even matter that Darren turned the script into something like Transformers: Origins. But when Noah's escalating paranoia starts to explicitly infuriate, I start shaking my head at times, and at that point the dramatically mature Emma Watson has to salvage more than she should. Actually, even a day after viewing, I couldn't decipher the puzzle with incredible visuals and annoyance from constant dialogues about the Creator or what is right. But because I'm not sure about any potential second viewing, I won't climb any higher even with the best will in the world. (27/03/2014)

A boring and tedious biblical fantasy with shockingly bad CGI giants and an unexpectedly short flood that ends before one can look around. Fortunately, at least the likeable cast was good. Russell Crowe was great and Hermione also gave a very decent performance, but otherwise the film did not please me with anything. Darren Aronofsky should stick to dramas without visual effects. 50%. (13/07/2014)

The crossover to feature film was a success. Aronofsky relishes in mirroring today’s humanity with the descendants of Cain. Dream sequences and trippy tales from the first chapters of the Bible, maintains the same fascinating effectivity that glues the viewer’s your dry eyes to the screen. Russell is excellent, his acting hasn’t been that good for a long time and he handled the work that his Noah has to perform with flying colors. The purpose of building the Ark is a little bit different here, almost turning the picture into a thriller toward the end and giving it a depressing aura only dispersed by Watson at the end. Lots of people fault Darren for selling out to Hollywood, but I can’t sincerely imagine that anyone else would have filmed a better Noah. Or that it wouldn’t have been so distinctive. I have nothing to fault (maybe Noah’s shaved nut, that was a bit extreme). Too little controversy? Not shocking enough? Too biblical? For God’s sake... You’re saying I don’t I have to do it?! (30/03/2014)

An ambitious jumble that is nice to look at, but also reflects why Aronofsky’s films get so many mixed responses; it’s packed with epic and fateful stuff, but lacks a strong author’s voice and a coherent motif. It’s held (literally) above water mostly by the actors and the rich narrative, but it’s so overstuffed that nothing else is memorable. (29/01/2019)

The Tolkeinite inside me is surprised to find where the Hobbits disappeared to when Isengard was flooded. The believer inside me is incensed over disrespect to the Word of our Lord and the unbeliever in me just shakes his head in disbelief over that really current “love Gaia" message... In any case, the movie has its own style and is interesting in the best meaning of the word; however much incongruous and slightly (really) slap-dash. Two thirds is a post apocalyptic vegan version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers which perilously frequently topples on the brink unintentional ludicrousness, but doesn’t fall over it, thanks mainly to the charisma of Russell Crowe. The last third, however, suddenly becomes a heavy, existential intimate psycho-thriller with classic (although unfaithful to the Book) Old Testament dilemmas. And that is utterly outstanding. It just doesn’t have any connection with the preceding catastrophic epic fantasy. (27/03/2014)