Stabroek News 5 reasons not to see Noah

Noah is the retelling of the Biblical story recorded in Genesis and re-teams Oscar winners Russell Crowe (Noah) and Jennifer Connelly (Naameh) from A Beautiful Mind. While the film has been criticized for taking liberties with the well-known story of the great flood which destroyed the world, it is doubtful that audiences were fully prepared for the volume of liberties the filmmakers have taken with the primary story.

The trailer promised an inspired epic, but what I saw was a catastrophe possibly on par with the disaster the film so painfully fails to convincingly portray. So here are five reason not to watch it:

5. Bizarre fantasy creatures – I have no problem with filmmakers taking artistic li berties with biblical stories. This was done quite tastefully with Cecil B Demille’s The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston. Few Christians or the average moviegoer will fault the movie for tiny additions to the Biblical telling of Moses; even the Moses-Nefertiti love storyline was not overdone to the point that it overshadowed the biblical highpoints. This is not the case with Noah.

From the opening montage you get the impression that the filmmakers are going for a more fantasy-like retelling of the story. This montage was the first indication that the movie was putrid; it included computer animation that seemed more suited for a low budget kid flick than an epic biblical film. It included images of the temptation of Adam and Eve in Eden and the snake depicting the devil looked like it belonged more in the company of Jim Henson’s Muppets than a large-scale film. At the end of the opening montage you half expect Miss Piggy to show up with the line ‘just kidding’. Yes, it’s that bad.

This brings me to my biggest sore point with this film. Following the poorly executed montage we are introduced to what appeared to be giant stone creatures, one of whom seemed to have a large hernia. I am no biblical scholar but I am quite sure there are no glowing giant creatures made of stone in Genesis. I was immediately shocked by the sudden appearance of these creatures, not because they were not in the Biblical story, but they seemed to belong more in The Lord of the Rings rather than a film based on characters from the Bible. When the stone giants started talking, I almost threw my popcorn at the screen in utter disgust with the foolish plot addition. We are provided with a brief explanation that the creatures are actually ‘fallen angels’ who disobeyed God and were punished by being turned into ‘living stone’. Yes, that sequence in the film appears as foolish as my description indicates and seems more fitted for the CW series ‘Supernatural’. The stone giants stick around for the first and second acts and even help Noah and his family to build the Ark. These provide for more laughable fantasy sequences as the creatures, still sporting hernia-like appendages, build and even have a huge battle with the humans trying to get on the Ark. I was waiting for James Earl Jones’ voice to come thundering through one of the creatures but alas they remain the most mind-numbing part of the film.

Other cringe-worthy fantasy creatures include a dog covered in what appeared to be scales rescued by Noah from hunters. I am not sure what inspired the filmmakers to think that there were scale-covered dogs in biblical times, but indeed a few minutes into the film you will see a badly animated CGI dog-like creature with scales. There are also glowing rocks which Noah and his family use to make fire and glowing snake skin. At one point the villain, Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) appears to be using the rocks to make fireworks; he shoots them into the sky and screams at God. Yes, again it’s as bad as it sounds. Thankfully the filmmakers have spared us the embarrassment of explaining the origin of these glowing rocks or this Noah would be officially categorised as a bad comedy.

4. Preposterous incest plot – Despite how disappointing the aforementioned sounds, nothing compares to the melodramatic plot for Noah and his family. At some points it’s hard to digest that such an over-the-top story-line could have been created for a major motion picture since the scenarios seemed more suited for a daytime soap opera. These include everything from an obviously fake belly bump to Noah almost murdering his own grandchildren. There is even a scene where the villain becomes a stowaway on the Ark and despite Noah and his family being at sea for what seems like months, no one discovers the stowaway until the final climatic fight. The villain even plots to murder Noah with one of his own sons and all this happens as Noah becomes disillusioned with the idea that he and his family deserve to live, another painful and unnecessary diversion from the biblical story. However, the most baffling plot twist happens when Noah rescues and adopts a young girl at the beginning of the film, she blossoms into beautiful Emma Watson (Hermoine from the Harry Potter films) and she eventually marries one of Noah’s sons. The other brothers refer to her as ‘sister’ and she obviously has a father-daughter relationship with Noah. Hence the complete disgust when she eventually becomes pregnant for Noah’s son, not sure which one since at that point I was wishing for a gun to my head to escape frustration. The incestuous sub-plot and the fact that the wives for Noah’s other sons were completely deleted from the story makes this one of the worst plots I have seen in recent memory.

3. Ear-splitting soundtrack – Without a doubt music composer Clint Mansell does not understand subtlety and was given free reign by the producers of Noah since the music seems to distract from the visuals in almost every key scene. As an avid soundtrack collector I am familiar with Mansell’s excellent work on Requiem for a Dream, but the music score for Noah is excessively bombastic and over-the-top. The percussion section seemed to be working over time during the scene when the animals arrive; the music swells so loud you half expect the ‘Death Star’ to suddenly appear and John Williams’ Star Wars theme to blare through the speakers. My air drums were on the verge of bleeding when the flood arrived and Mansell cranks up the drum section to deafening proportions. What great modern composers James Horner, John Williams and Hans Zimmer have shown us is that subtle music can create the biggest results. The opposite happens in Noah.

2. Disappointing visual effects – Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly obviously try their best with some of the corniest lines ever written for a large-scale film but their efforts are squandered by the less than spectacular visual effects. By the time I suffered through the talking stone giants, Watson’s obviously fake baby bump and the Muppet snake (who shows up twice), when the flood finally comes it lasts all of three minutes and we basically see people being washed away and the Ark floating. That’s it. There are no jaw-dropping moments or sequences of awe. I have seen more interesting CGI effects in a Sci-Fi Channel Saturday afternoon movie. The animals look painfully CGI, the drowning people barely register and at one point I wished they would have used some realistic CGI effects on Emma Watson’s awkward pregnant belly.

1. Russell Crowe’s Halle Berry inspired hair – The final act of the film is the most disappointing as Russell Crowe’s Noah is transformed from spear wielding warrior to ‘crazy mad geriatric ’. I do not jest. Crowe literally runs around the Arc for the entire final act screaming about killing his grandchildren since apparently his last son, which one I cannot remember since the nonsense was inducing a coma, was supposed to be the last man on Earth. The obvious insensitivity to Genesis is only the tip of the ice-berg as the make-up artistes seemed to have a field day making Crowe appear more like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction than a biblical hero. What truly shocked me was Crowe’s hair cut in one of the final scenes since it instantly reminds you of one of Halle Berry’s wigs from the X-Men movies. I kid you not. Crowe appears with silver highlights as if he just walked out of a salon. Russell Crowe is the greatest actor of our time and the fact that the writers could not provide him with a plot worthy of an actor of his calibre is truly the biggest disappointment of this film. Crowe deserves better and so does the man he depicts. Taking artistic liberties should be done to enhance a story not create talking stone giants. As Crowe goes on his rampage at the end of the film, for one moment I hoped he would scream ‘I am Maximus Decimus Meridius’ and I would be transported to a more credible film based on historic accounts. Even if Kevin Costner released a sequel to Water World, Noah would still be deserving of the title worst film of 2014.