Noah, put down that burger and save the world.

Wow.  I don’t really know where to start with the movie Noah.  Darren Aronofsky‘s take on this early Bible story is waaay out there.  My first problem with the film is the implied story.  The story we are asked to follow is that man was evil and was destroyed by God.  What is not spoken, but still a strong underlying story in the film is that man destroyed the planet’s environment by eating the animals. The association with eating meat and evil was driven home again and again.

Aronofsky (an admitted atheist) who also wrote the film called it the “least biblical of bible themed films.”  He added elements that were never in the original story – a bad guy that stows away on the ark (I guess Hollywood need a climactic battle scene) as well as conflict with Noah’s sons having either no wife, a barren wife or too young to wed.  In the Bible, the three sons brought their wives with and thus didn’t have all that drama.

Russell Crowe turned in a good performance but his character was another blasphemy.  In the Bible, Noah was chosen because “he was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”  This was not the character we saw on the screen.  This Noah is one willing to murder men to save animals.

The entire rock-people-transformers thing was just weird.  They looked and acted like Treebeard and were explained to be fallen angels.  Uh… in the bible “there were giants on the earth, and they sought Noah to take away his life,” but in this, they were redeeming themselves by fighting for him.  In dying for Noah, they were translated and sent directly to Heaven.

While Anthony Hopkins was typical Anthony Hopkins as Methuseleh, Aronofsky turned Noah’s grandfather into more of an Earth Mother than just a wise old man.  A seed from the Garden of Eden – really?  In the end, this film implies that our Heavenly Father destroys humanity because of sins against animals and because we caused global warming.

As an action-adventure, it is an entertaining little romp, but as religious canon, it is retarded.

RATING 6 out of 10