What do you mean "what clever title?"!
...I thought it was clever.
Well anyway this is my first film review ever so bear with me as I do it wrong and then you can complain about it to me later and I'll ignore you at first and then be defensive and I may insult you just as a knee-jerk reaction, but then I'll apologize later through a heartfelt text message because I'm too chicken to face you like a man and then we'll make up and go out for pancakes but I'll be too self-conscious to ever share any more of my writing with you again.
So let's get started!
Today's review is for the 2014 film Noah! Starring Russell "Can't Sing Javert" Crowe, Emma "Hermione from Harry Potter" Watson and Jennifer "She Doesn't Have A Nickname" Connelly. Directed by Darren Aronofsky best known for directing Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream and one of my favorites The Fountain.
Look at this epic movie poster! Blaaah! You know this film is going to be full of intense action sequences and protrusive bottom jaws!
The film begins explaining the story we all (well most of us non-heathens) know about the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel and such. Each brother had his line of descendants and God decided that the descendants of Cain were no good since they somehow got lumped in with Cain's evil nonsense simply by virtue of the fact that they were related to him. Never mind the fact that according to this logic, everybody in the world is related to each other and therefore everyone is related to Cain. So...whatever.
Enter mini Noah and his father out making flowers grow and other magical things. Then this fellow comes along by the name of Tubal-Cain (no, he was not a cylindrical version of Cain if you're wondering) and kills Noah's father claiming that he thus ended the line of Seth, not knowing Noah is hiding behind a rock like a ninja.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Noah has a wife and three sons. ...I don't know, if it were me and I was the last of my family line, I would make a shit ton more babies than three. Just sayin'. So anyway, Noah's family is heading across the land to see his grandfather, Methusela, played by Hannibal Lecter himself - Anthony Hopkins. But he doesn't show up until later. In the meantime, Noah's family stumbles across a village of people who were just slaughtered by the Cain army. Ew, awkward. But there's one survivor, a girl named Ila (Hermione) and Noah thinks "Yay I can take in this female companion so my sons can reproduce and carry on the family line!" until Ila reveals that during the attack on her village, she was stabbed in the baby maker and was rendered useless. This puts Noah in an awkward situation but decides to take the less rude route and take her in regardless.
By the way, what are the chances that during an attack from a guy with a sword that you only get stabbed in the ovaries? It's like
The extended family continues on their journey to see Methusela in his giant mountain cave home.
Now I'm not much of a Bible expert, but I do know that as I was watching the film some things just didn't seem very Bibley. Like I'm pretty sure these rock creatures
aren't anywhere in any translation of the Bible anywhere ever. I mean Aronofsky probably wanted to spiff up the story. I get that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who was immediately thrown out of the movie thinking "Well when should I expect The Thing to show up?"
I guess I'll fast-forward to the part everybody knows and that's when shit starts to get real. Noah gets a vision from God to build an ark so two of each animal and his family can survive and everybody else can fuck off and die. The rock people help Noah after he makes a forest sprout out of the ground and the family starts building the giant ark.
Part-way through construction, word gets out that God's going to kill everything so millions of animal couples start flocking to the ark. When the wave of bug and creepy-crawly couples show up, Noah's kids' immediate reaction (as mine would) was to swat at them, but Noah sagely replies, "Everything that creeps, crawls and slithers." Easy to say for someone who has never gotten Malaria or West Nile. Thanks a bunch, Noah.
Noah's wife comes up with the idea to put the creatures into a deep sleep by burning incense. Apparently this knocks the animals out cold for the entire duration of the film.
Meanwhile Noah's oldest son, Shem, has grown pretty fond of his barren adoptive sister but is pretty bummed out that his sexual desires won't produce anything useful. His brother, Ham, is super jealous that his brother got dibs on their sister and sets out to find his own baby-maker. Ham wanders into the Cain people village and spots the first young girl within sight and decides that she'll do.
Upset that she'll never bear children and carry on the family line, Ila stumbles upon her adoptive great-grandfather, Anthony Hopkins, who apparently has God-like powers and with one touch suddenly heals Ila of her useless ovaries. Instead of thanking him, she runs back to the ark and collides into Shem where they promptly have sex right then and there. I mean, why waste time, right?
Cain's village has also gotten word of Noah's ark and has schemed to attack him and take over the vessel so they could all have a big party during the end of the world. When it starts to rain, everybody loses their shit and stampedes towards the ark. Ham and his new baby-maker meanwhile are on their way back to the ark as well when the herd of crazy people come barreling towards them. They panic and run, but baby-maker loses her balance and falls. Ham freaks out and tries to go back for her but Noah drags him back to the ark. Baby-maker, apparently completely helpless, just screams for Ham to come back and help her up before promptly getting trampled by the mob and crushed to death. This upsets Ham very much. Way to kill off our species, DAD!
Noah and his family clamor into the ark and the rock people hold off the mob while the rain turns into a flood. As the mob beats on the rock people, one apparently gets beaten too hard and explodes into a beam of light. Slowly one by one each rock person falls and beams back up to heaven in a blaze of glory.
Tubal-Cain isn't really fazed by this and finds way to sneak onto the ark before the waters rise.
Noah's family huddles in the ark while they ignore the distant screams of people drowning and dramatic lamenting about how they're missing out on the ark party. Ila and Shem think this is a good opportunity to inform Noah and his wife that they're going to be grandparents, because apparently one can tell if they're pregnant within 24 hours of sex (??) Noah and his wife ask how (the hell) that's even possible and when Ila says Noah's grandfather, Methusela, gave her uterus magic healing powers, Noah gets super pissed and vows to murder the baby if it's a girl. If it's a boy, he'll let it grow up a weird, awkward, sexless life and die a lonely old virgin lacking any social skills. Neither of these options make any sense to me! Why would Noah care whether it's a boy or a girl? I'm no biologist, but I'm pretty sure no matter what gender you are born, you need another human of the opposite gender to reproduce, right? So...whatever. Anyway, Noah tells Ila that as soon as that baby pops out, he better see a penis on it or he's making baby soup for dinner. Ila and Shem aren't super happy with how Noah took the news and there's a little bit of family drama that ensues...also, pretty sure none of which made it into the Bible.
Meanwhile Tubal-Cain is somewhere in the ark licking his wounds and feasting off of a unicorn when Ham stumbles upon him. Firstly, Ham scolds Tubal-Cain for devouring the beast his father is working so hard to save, to which T-C replies, "Well, your dad didn't exactly give a crap about you and your..." --His eyes drift to Ham's throbbing package-- "...needs." This gets Ham all fired up as he remembers that his dad ruined Ham's chances of ever getting laid and carrying on the species so he and T-C plot a sinister plot to murder Noah as soon as the ark finds land.
And apparently he's able to hide in the ark for the entire duration of Ila's pregnancy, which again, I'm no doctor, but I've heard that's a nine-month period. During this time, everybody else manages to stay alive on a boat full of angry animals and not go crazy and make friends with volleyballs. Ila's getting pretty preggo when Shem tells his mom that they're escaping on a raft. Noah's wife bids them good-bye as they are about to set sail when Noah trolls up behind them and sets the skiff on fire.
Shem finally decides he's had enough of Noah's shit, never mind that he'd probably be dead if it wasn't for Noah, but he's not really considering that at the moment and attempts to fight Noah and fails miserably as Noah knocks him out with one punch. Like twelve seconds later, Ila goes into labor. I guess it's a good thing Noah set their raft on fire or else Ila would have to have a middle-of-the-endless-ocean birth. Not sure how well that would've gone over. Anyway, Noah's wife, having been well-versed on birthing babies, takes Ila to a spot in the ark to push the kid out.
Meanwhile, Tubal-Cain and Ham decide now's a pretty good time to launch their attack on Noah. Ham comes at Noah and Noah lays him out with one punch. Either Noah never taught his boys how to fight or he's just that badass.
T-C puts up a little more of a struggle and actually knocks Noah down. But then instead of doing Noah in, T-C does the thing where he makes a long-winded speech as most bad guys tend to do, and Ham overcomes his teenage angst and chooses to kill Tubal-Cain instead of his dad. As father and son stand over Tubal-Cain's body, they share a bonding moment.
Meanwhile upstairs, Ila gives birth to a bebeh. Noah's wife says, "But wait there's more!" and Ila turns out to give birth to not one, but TWO bebehs! She looks between the babies' legs and groans. What shit luck!
Upon hearing the groan of double disappointment, Noah abandons his father-son bonding moment with Ham and runs up to murder the bebehs. When he busts into the delivery room, Noah's wife says, "Gee, I don't know where she went. She was just here a second ago..." Noah looks around. "Huh. Weird."
Babies cry from upstairs.
"Dammit," Noah's wife mutters as Noah bolts to the sound wielding his baby-killing knife.
Noah reaches the upper deck where Ila is doing a horrible job hiding and she begs Noah not to kill them. He ignores her and just as he raises his blade to cut up some bebeh, he is suddenly overwhelmed with bebeh and upon seeing bebehs he realizes he shouldn't kill bebehs because bebehs! He drops his knife and gives them each a kiss, which still upsets Ila because now she's super confused and completely untrusting of him now.
In the wake of his peace and love epiphany, the ark hits shore and he tells the family to disembark for family pictures.
On their new home, which is horribly lonely, Noah says a prayer for the family thanking God for the second chance. He also prays that with time, love and tenderness his infant granddaughters and future grandchildren inbreed with each other to start the human race anew the way God wanted.
Ew.
And with that, I conclude my review of Noah as a weird, disturbing and often times confusing cinematic attempt at being profound. I rate it 2 out of 5 Bibles. Take my advice and do what I usually do when I attend church and the collection plate comes my way: Just pass.
