Sunday, April 6, 2014

Noah (PG-13) - By Daniel Kilgallong



Noah is an epic biblical-inspired film loosely based on the story of Noah’s Ark. The movie is directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Russell Crowe (Gladiator) as the title role. Noah also features an impressive supporting cast including: Jennifer Connolly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Anthony Hopkins. Despite many controversial alterations and twists to the original story, I thought that Noah did a pretty good job of bringing the classic tale to life and appealing it to a modern generation.

Early on, Noah is shown living happily with his wife Naameh and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japeth. Noah eventually has a dream where he sees the world being destroyed and completely covered in water. He then realizes that he is receiving a message from God and decides to build an ark in order to save all the good in the world. One major twist that this version has is that Noah gets help building this ark from stone giants known as Watchers who come from a deserted barren wasteland. 

As Noah’s ark nears completion, all kinds of the world’s animals leave the forests and enter the massive vessel. They are all arranged in an orderly fashion and put to sleep using special incense created by Noah himself. During the construction time, the ark is attacked by a hostile group of humans but they are fended off by the Watchers under Noah’s command. He can only take a select group of the good people left in the world and simply doesn’t have room for everybody. 

Soon, the rain begins to fall and Noah must complete his momentous mission and survive the massive apocalyptic flood that will destroy all evil on our planet. After the flood, all the living things on the ark must start a new world with a fresh beginning. 

Overall, Noah was a very good movie with awesome visuals and great acting across the board from the ensemble cast, particularly Russell Crowe in his performance as the title role. The movie has a slow and somewhat boring build-up; however it was all worth it in the end when the film finally reached its thrilling conclusion. Personally, I thought the epic twist on the classic tale made for a very exciting movie, but not everybody is going to appreciate the changes to the classic tale. Putting that aside, Noah is still well-done, epic and incredibly entertaining.

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