When I first heard about this movie, Christian fundamentalists were freaking out about it because it wasn't "biblically accurate". I was all set to write this nice comparative essay about the biblical Noah's Ark story compared to this one and even pepper in some of my own thoughts on how we shouldn't take the Bible quite so literally. After all it's the message that is the most important and not looking at it as 100% literal history. That's before I saw just how awful the movie itself was!
Let me get the positives out of the way. Because I am about to tear this movie a new one from a cinematic and storytelling point of view. The acting is pretty strong, the story (changed from the original *rock monsters*) works but has it's flaws, and it still manages to stay true to the biblical message. Kinda.
Before someone sees the movie and gets up me about calling them "rock monsters", I know they are angels imprisoned in rocks so they aren't technically "rock monsters". To that I say, they are rock monsters. They are rocks. They have glowing eyes. They walk. They talk. They are rock monsters. There's biblical inaccuracies and then there's adding rock monsters.
This is an awful movie. From a cinematic point of view, this movie is a disaster. The CG effects are laughable. And there's more than one time I wanted to run screaming from the theater F bombs akimbo because of just how crappy the movie looked and it's never ending search for ways to give me a seizure! The shaky cam is bad enough. I've said it before and I guess it bears repeating: if your actors can't do action scenes, don't hire them to be in an action movie! F***ing speed lines don't make for good cinema! I'm not kidding. The camera work is so bad, there are speed lines. Like we're watching a bad '80s cartoon from Japan! We live in a world of High Definition cameras. There is no reason for anyone to have to strain to see what the hell is going on! Directors... you aren't being artsy. You aren't adding energy to a tense situation at this point. You are just pissing me off. But then add in the strobe lighting effects and that's when I knew someone was on drugs. But it gets worse. There's at least two separate instances of this really weird slide show effect. It's like watching one of those flip up books that looks like something is moving. Only done really fast and for about 2 minutes. This movie just hurts to look at it. I had to really fight to stay in my seat.
I really expected much better. The director is Darren Aronofsky! This is the guy that did The Wrestler, Black Swan, and Pi. These are three far better movies and deserve to be watched. This on the other hand needs to be in the bargain bin at a Walmart somewhere because it's unwatchable. I'm not saying it's a bad story and bad acting. I'm saying the way it was filmed is unwatchable.
The story on the other hand was really good. They changed the story a lot. *cough rock monsters cough* But not all the changes are ones that I don't like. The big theme of the story was that humans had become too evil to be worth salvaging in the eyes of God. Well... what does that mean?
Here the movie goes to extraordinary lengths to show you. Cain played by Ray Winstone was perfect. No not Cain from the Cain and Abel story but Cain's descendant. And if ever there was someone that sums up the hubris of mankind, it's this guy. He took the idea of "man is made in God's image" and "God gave man dominion over the land" and took it to the most literal extreme. If we are made in God's image, that means we are special. We are better. Because we are better it's okay to subjugate the world and have it bow down to our will. Humans are above the laws of nature because we are in God's image. Nature should worship us. Human will is stronger than anything on Earth. So anything we do on this Earth is fine. We can take what we want and destroy whatever we want. No consequences.
It's deceptively evil, isn't it?
Then this movie starts to go a little bit weird.
Consistent. Tone. If you want this to be a fantastical tale where flowers bloom from a drop of rain, stick with that. If you want this to be a more grounded and dark version of the story, go with that. You can't have both. I don't think there's room in a serious story for rock monsters and humans eviscerating livestock with their hands and teeth. Why should I take the movie seriously? Well, that way I can feel the conflict and drama when Noah tries to kill his twin granddaughters in their mother's arms.
Uhm...Wait... What?
Yeah. I forgot to mention how this Noah is a complete nut job. Because you know saving the world by the command of God wasn't enough drama for this movie. No. Let's make Noah a genocidal psychopath. Basically he sees the evils of mankind where the people are selling women off to be raped in exchange for animals to eat.
Excuse me a minute. I think I lost my mind again.
Oh and FYI if the horrid cinematography and seizure inducing scenes weren't enough reason to not see this movie in IMAX and/or 3D, Russel Crowe's drunken naked man ass should be the cherry on top.
Yeah big spoilers. He doesn't kill his twin granddaughters and humanity flourishes. But this is what I'm talking about in the jumps in logic we are expected to make in this story. It's one thing to say that he needed his sons to help build the arc. Except they never help. The rock monsters build it. Humans just kinda help a little. They don't have to go and get the animals because God brings them all there. So, exactly what did God need with Noah's family again? And then there's Noah deciding that humanity just sucks and everyone should all just go to hell. Literally. So much so that he's already planned out the future for mankind and that is that he and his wife will die, his kids will bury them, and then they will die and the world will just go on without humans on it. So, why get on the boat? Why let your family on the boat? Why not kill your family and yourself once you're on the boat? It would've saved you from listening to the banshee like screaming from the entire world drowning!
It's an awful movie. Some scenes are really good so it's not like this movie isn't fixable. But towards the end it goes straight into Hollywood action movie cliche. How could Cain stow away on the boat for the entire voyage and not have someone accidentally stumble upon him. I know it's a big boat, but it's still a boat. He's killing the animals trying to gain their power. A guy like Cain isn't exactly Mr. Subtle. They only have Shem's wife get pregnant and have children in the span of AT BEST five months. Just so we can have the killing babies scene. (Can't believe I had to write that)
This needed some serious re-writes. Wait for rental or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment