noah movie reviews

“Noah” is a bizarre movie.

It’s a modern blockbuster, chock full of the visual and aural and narrative tics we expect from modern blockbusters: flash-cut nightmares and hallucinations, prophecies and old wise men, predictions of apocalypse and a savior’s rise, computer-generated monsters with galumphing feet and deep voices, brawny men punching and stabbing each other, and crowd scenes and floods and circling aerial views of enormous structures being built, scored to tom-toms and men chanting and women wailing.

But wait: this is not the latest Marvel Comics epic. Nor is it a standard-issue messianic sci-fi film along the lines of “ Star Wars ” or “ The Matrix .” “Noah” is more of a surrealist nightmare disaster picture fused to a parable of human greed and compassion, all based on the bestselling book of all time, the Bible, mainly the Book of Genesis.

More specifically, “Noah” is writer-director Darren Aronofksy’s interpretation of the story of Noah and the flood. He’s made a few changes.

Okay, more than a few. Way more. This is the Book of Genesis after a page one rewrite.

Among other things, Aronofsky has stirred in ideas from earlier film versions of Noah’s story, plus bits from other religions and mythologies, including the Kabbalah, pre-Christian paganism and, it would appear, J.R.R. Tolkien and “The Neverending Story.” And he’s worked in what comic books or long-form TV watchers would term “callbacks” to earlier parts of the Old Testament, including the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain, the death of Noah’s father Lamech, and Adam and Eve’s ejection from the Garden of Eden. The film’s most visually inventive sequence is an ellipsis in the main narrative: a self-contained, time lapse retelling of the birth of the universe—essentially a Big Bang story that could be dropped right into either version of the great science show “Cosmos.” And of course, the international cast speaks with English accents, or tries to, English accents being Hollywood’s way of conveying “foreignness” or “antiquity” without making ticket buyers read subtitles. All the actors have elegantly sculpted eyebrows and gorgeous hair, particularly Russell Crowe ‘s Noah, who in one scene sports a teased-up ‘do that makes him look like a beefy version of Christopher Walken in “The King of New York.”

Noah is still the anchor of this partly-waterborne epic. But in this version he is more of an action hero. When the flood waters rise, he changes again, becoming an antihero, and a menace to his own family; their ranks include Noah’s wife wife Naameh ( Jennifer Connelly ), his sons Shem ( Douglas Booth ), Ham ( Logan Lerman ) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll) and Shem’s wife-to-be Ila ( Emma Watson ). The latter was adopted by Noah as an infant. Much is made of the inferiority complex Ila suffers because of her infertility. She has a supernatural scar on her stomach and cannot bear children. Or so we’re told.

Ila’s infertility proves important later, when she ends up in the belly of a 300x50x30 cubit ark alongside the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects under her adoptive daddy’s protection. Before the flood, God spoke to Noah, not in a voice but through a series of mysterious dreams that connect the events of Genesis 6-9 with earlier sections. It goes like this: Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden after Eve fell prey to the serpent’s charms and ate the forbidden fruit (from a tree that looks very much like the Tree of Life in Aronofsky’s “ The Fountain “). The descendants of Cain and Abel waged war against each other. The descendants of Cain allied themselves with the The Watchers , a race of fallen angels or seraphim who were encrusted by hardened magma created when they fell from Heaven to earth like shooting stars and smashed craters in the ground; these creatures now lumber across the landscape like Transformers, or like the Ents as visualized in Peter Jackson’s “Rings” movies, grumbling and roaring and making pronouncements in the heavily-filtered voices of Nick Nolte and Frank Langella (who were probably told they had gravel voices at various points during their lives, but never imagined they’d be put to use in quite this way). The Watchers are big and scary, and at first they seem as though they’ll be obstacles to Noah’s mission, but they soon have a change of heart and end up helping Noah and his family build the Ark to beat the flood. But it’s not all hearts and flowers after that, because Noah’s gotten it into his head that only the animals should survive—that after the flood he will have to kill his wife and children and himself, to prevent sinful humanity from angering The Creator again.

And it’s here that things take a turn toward modern-day allegory. As Time’s Richard Corliss points out in an excellent long analysis of “Noah,” the last “adaptation with anything like Aronofsky’s sociopolitical seriousness was the 1928 silent film Noah’s Ark , which compares the flood (‘A deluge of water drowning a world of lust’) to World War I (‘A deluge of blood drowning a world of hate!’).”

Aronofsky’s film seems to have the same aims but different concerns. “Noah” ties God’s wrath to the indiscriminate despoiling of the land and the slaughter of earth’s animal population by greedy and hungry humans. (Noah and his family are vegetarians and view the consumption of meat as a sin against God, referred to here only as “the Creator.”) The deluge, vividly described by Noah as “the waters of the earth meeting the waters of the sky,” is depicted as kind of a nautical version of a panini press that sandwiches the earth’s creatures between slices of roaring water and crushes the life out of them. In this Biblical epic, water doesn’t just rain down and creep up toward the Ark, it gurgles up from the soil, the cracked earth filling up like blood welling in wounds. Sometimes it erupts with geyser-like force. An aerial view of the flood spreading across the land evokes cancer spreading. A spectacular pull-back from the endangered planet shows the atmosphere dotted with dozens of hurricane cloud-whorls.

Aronofsky has also added an action film subplot bulked up with obsessive antihero craziness and daddy issues. He’s inserted the chieftain of Cain’s descendants, Tubal-Cain, described in Genesis as “the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron,” into the story. The character is a warrior-despot enemy of Noah’s and (intriguingly) a dark mirror of Noah’s gravest flaws and worst impulses. As inhabited by Ray Winstone , who plays this sort of raging bull character better than anybody, Tubal-Cain is a creature of pure appetite, and super-macho. The dude put the patriarch in “patriarchal.” He’s all privilege, all entitlement; he thinks everyone and everything (including life itself) exists for his sake. He thinks Noah’s concern about the rape of nature is just a bunch of girly-man whining, stopping just short of calling him a hippie or a tree-hugger. He is determined to take over the Ark and fill it with his own tribe, or barring that, to get on board himself, to survive the flood he once dismissed as false prophecy.

Get on board he does, and once Tubal-Cain and Noah are trapped within the same space: Tubal-Cain peeling off the dissatisfied members of the clan and working them, the way the serpent worked Eve; Noah losing his grip on sanity and goodness and turning into a mad sea captain. Suddenly it’s a haunted-house psychodrama, with two bad daddies terrorizing women and children in the bowels of a waterborne Hotel Overlook. As Noah becomes more unhinged, he starts to physically resemble Tubal-Cain. By the time the two men trade blows, Noah isn’t just fighting a murderous stowaway, he’s fighting to suppress he own worst impulses.

This is, as you’ve gathered, an immense, weird, ungainly, often laughably overwrought and silly movie, an amalgamation of elements from various literary and cinematic forebears. Some elements fuse beautifully and others seem to repel each other; still others float onscreen in isolation, like bits of wreckage carried along by floodwater. Aronofsky will rightly be criticized for adding a lot of images and notions that make Noah’s story less, rather than more, special—elements you can’t escape at movie theaters because every modern fantasy and sci-fi film and disaster picture seems to have been imagined by the same screenwriting hive-mind, and envisioned by the same boring CGI software. The Watchers with their clomping feet; the early scenes of tribal combat and “You killed my daddy!” emoting; the scenes between Noah and his aged grandfather Methuselah ( Anthony Hopkins ) that turn the latter into sort of a Biblical equivalent of Yoda or E.T.; Noah and Tubal-Cain whaling on each other in the belly of the ark: you’ve seen it all in recent years, over and over, in all manner of Hollywood blockbuster.

And yet there’s still a ferocious originality to “Noah.” Despite its assemblage of borrowed and stolen and re-imagined pieces, you have never seen anything quite like it. It’s a disaster movie with environmentalist overtones and CGI rock-beasts and animals and apocalyptic events, and musings on the primal roles of the father and the mother, and the parents’ desire to control their uncontrollable children, and all of this is periodically interrupted by flash-cuts of the serpent in the garden, and a glowing hand picking forbidden fruit, and Cain bashing Abel’s brains in silhouette. Aronofsky’s “cubits” are actual cubes: the finished Ark is comprised of blocks, and when it bobs on brackish waves it looks like a giant wooden Lego brick. Sometimes Aronofsky puts everything else on hold so that Ray Winstone can deliver a monologue about why man is not just entitled but obligated to kill and eat animals and use the land however he sees fit, or so that Russell Crowe can tell the story of the Big Bang by candlelight or sing an infant to sleep in a quieter version of his Inspector Javert voice from “Les Miserables.”

Throughout the movie’s running time, a word kept flashing in my head: “fervor.” Aronofsky is a fervent filmmaker. He always has been, from his debut feature “ Pi ” onward. Many aspects of “Noah” feel like an organic continuation of themes and elements that have obsessed him for the past fifteen years: husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and sons and daughters protecting, dominating, excluding and terrorizing each other; the alluring power of obsession, be it for drugs (“ Requiem for a Dream “), romantic nostalgia and denial of death’s finality (“The Fountain”) or artistic ambition (“ Black Swan “); the intrusion of supernatural or mythical or uncanny events into “normal” life; the notion that sanity and rationality are fragile mental states that can be easily shattered by trauma or disaster.

If I had to compare “Noah” to any previous Biblical movies, I’d go with Mel Gibson’s “ The Passion of the Christ ” and Martin Scorsese’s “ The Last Temptation of Christ ,” not because the stories are similar (obviously they aren’t; Old Testament vs. New) but because, even when you’re confused or disgusted or bored, you still feel the director’s mad passion radiating from the screen. Aronofsky has made a major, perhaps catastrophic tactical error, in that we can always feel his obsessive certainty but we can’t quite translate it into our own terms, as we should be able to do with any fable or cautionary tale that’s meant to illuminate or instruct. What’s onscreen often feels more like a visual transcript of one man’s fantasy or nightmare, with all the baffling or nonsensical juxtapositions of this and that and the other thing left intact, exactly as Aronofsky’s sleeping mind first encountered them.

The net effect reminded me of one of my favorite passages from the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 14.4: “Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the congregation.” Aronofsky is speaking in tongues here, edifying himself but not the congregation. But it’s not every day that you get to see a major American filmmaker speak in tongues, babbling to a theater full of strangers about the astonishing dream he had, a dream that he’s sure is important, even though he can’t explain precisely why. You don’t see movies like this everyday. You don’t see movies like this ever. That’s not nothing.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah
Russell Crowe as Noah
Douglas Booth as Shem
Ray Winstone as Tubal Cain
Jennifer Connelly as Naameh
Emma Watson as Ila
Logan Lerman as Ham
Kevin Durand as Og
Darren Aronofsky

Director of Photography

Matthew Libatique

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Is noah worth watching breaking down the 2014 russell crowe movie's reviews & rotten tomatoes.

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10 Best Biblical Epics Of All Time

How russell crowe was integral in serial killer casting for anna kendrick's netflix movie woman of the hour, terrifier 3 box office surpasses blumhouse film to climb 2024's highest-grossing horror movie chart.

Noah's unique adaptation of the biblical tale is praised for its visuals and performances, making it worth a watch for fans of thought-provoking dramas.
Rotten Tomatoes scores don't tell the whole story - Noah received mixed reviews, but its visuals and cast performances were positively recognized.
Noah is an off-beat addition to Darren Aronofsky's filmography, blending biblical origins with fantasy and adventure elements for an entertaining story.

Darren Aronofsky's 2014 biblical epic, Noah , has found its way to trending on Netflix, but its reviews indicate the film isn't for everyone. Orchestrated by one of the most fascinating 21st-century filmmakers, Noah is an off-beat addition to Darren Aronofsky's filmography , as it's his only massive blockbuster. Biblical stories tend to be divisive in film, with movies like The Last Temptation of Christ being some of the most controversial ever made. Therefore, the film has mixed reviews, but Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb scores don't always tell the whole story.

One of the film's evident virtues is that Noah has a fantastic cast starring Russel Crowe, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and more. It's based on the biblical story of Noah's Ark, though it takes its creative liberties for Hollywood blockbuster purposes. Those decisions are bound to stir up controversy, as audiences have differing views on how adaptation should be handled in cinema, particularly when it involves such sensitive material. Noah mixes its biblical origins with fantasy, adventure, and more , resulting in a story that can be entertaining for the right audience.

Noah Has A 75% Score From Critics On Rotten Tomatoes

The movie has a rotten tomatoes audience score of 41%.

Darren Aronofsky's Noah has a 75% score, which places it in the middle of the pack in his filmography. A 75% score isn't anything to write home about, especially when his film The Wrestler boasts an outstanding 98% score. However, it's only a bit less than Requiem for a Dream , which is considered one of his critically acclaimed masterpieces yet only has a 78% Tomatometer. The point being that Rotten Tomatoes scores don't always tell the whole story . A 75% score isn't bad by any means, and many critics praised it for its performances and awe-inspiring visuals.

Based on Audience Score perception, Noah is a loose adaptation at best and is better watched with the desire to view an epic fantasy adventure movie rather than a biblical tale.

While critics mostly praised the film, audiences on Rotten Tomatoes were distasteful of the biblical epic. Noah has a dreadful 41% Audience Score, with many low scores attributed to the lack of faithfulness to the biblical tale. That creates a vital question when deciding whether to watch the movie, as the original story's meaning can play a significant part in one's perception of the film. Based on Audience Score perception, Noah is a loose adaptation at best and is better watched with the desire to view an epic fantasy adventure movie rather than a biblical tale.

The stories from the Bible have often been used as inspiration for films. Always grand in scale, biblical epics match the weight of the tales.

Noah's Reviews Praise Its Visuals & Cast Performances

The biblical epic brilliantly showcases darren aronofsky's unique direction..

Noah's positive reviews consistently praise Darren Aronofsky's visuals. No matter the budget, Aronofsky has been able to create striking visuals throughout his career, from movies like Black Swan to complex movies like The Fountain . He continues this trend in Noah , where sprawling historical/fantasy imagery keeps the audience engaged throughout . Noah relies heavily on CGI, but it works in crafting an engaging, visceral cinematic experience.

Critics also praise the performances in Noah. Even though none of its cast members are at their best, their natural talent and star power bring an enjoyable perspective to the film. The 2014 film isn't one of Russell Crowe's best performances , but he's a star who's hard to go wrong with, bringing his usual intensity and imposing screen presence to play the titular character. Sir Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, and Jennifer Connelly are also exceptional in their supporting roles, bringing the story to life with sophistication.

Noah Is Worth Watching For Fans Of Darren Aronofsky, Russell Crowe & Thought-Provoking Dramas

The movie's adaptation of noah's ark still proved divisive among audiences..

Darren Aronofsky's Noah is undoubtedly a divisive film that isn't for everyone, but it's certainly worth trying for fans of the filmmaker, Russell Crowe movies, or generally thought-provoking dramas. For lovers of Darren Aronofsky's usual style, the inflated budget and excessive CGI aren't detrimental to the writing techniques that compose his more acclaimed movies. As previously mentioned, it also has some of the director's most engaging visual spectacles, making it worthwhile for those who enjoy painting-like cinematography.

Russel Crowe was past his prime in Noah , but he's always been an exceptional actor, and the 2014 film allows him to be charismatic and incredibly entertaining. His star power alone would make Noah worth the watch for those who resonate with his performances. Lastly, the film may be grand in scale, but it offers profoundly human storytelling, giving audiences something to ponder long after its completion.

Darren Aronofsky's Noah is an epic biblical drama starring Russell Crowe as the titular character. The film tells the story of the legendary man chosen by God and the ark he builds to save his family and the world's animals from a great flood. Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Ray Winston, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman, and Douglas Booth round out the rest of the main cast.

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

March 28, 2014
Russell Crowe as Noah; Jennifer Connelly as Naameh; Ray Winstone as Tubal-cain; Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah; Emma Watson as Ila; Logan Lerman as Ham; Douglas Booth as Shem; Leo McHugh Carroll as Japheth

Home Release Date

July 29, 2014
Darren Aronofsky

Distributor

Paramount Pictures

Movie Review

It’s not easy being clean.

Nobody’s puppets, Noah and his family still try to live as cleanly as possible—to live as the Creator meant them to live. And they’re doing it in a very dirty age long before Babylon held the fertile crescent, before Egypt’s pyramids sprouted next to the Nile. They work in harmony with nature. They don’t wantonly kill either man or beast.

They don’t, in other words, operate like those other guys—the descendants of Cain who dominate the planet. Those thugs are fighters, not lovers, and they’ll kill anything that gets in their way, be it animals, people or the planet itself. They even went to war with the mysterious Watchers—towering rock-encrusted beings who, at one time, taught and guided humanity. These Cainanites are turning the Creator’s amazing work into a planetary landfill.

And the Creator has had enough.

He gives Noah a vision, showing him a world submerged in water. Noah, disturbed, treks to visit his grandfather, Methuselah, who holds what you might call a fruitless court in a cave. There, Noah receives another picture from heaven: a huge boat, bobbing on the water, animals swimming to meet it.

The Creator, Noah deduces, is going to push the reset button, destroying all that is bad so that things can begin anew. “The storm can’t be stopped,” Noah tells Methuselah. “But it can be survived.”

Noah has always followed his Creator’s wishes—but the way ahead is now unbelievably hard. Not only must he, his family and a few helpful Watchers build a massive ark, they must use it—as the rest of humanity screams and drowns beneath. They must be strong. They must show no mercy.

And what if the evil doesn’t die with the descendants of Cain, but lives inside Noah’s own family too? Does imperfect man have a place in the Creator’s perfect plan? Wouldn’t we just mess the world up all over again? Aren’t we all sullied by weakness and sin? Dirtied by fatal flaws? Even the righteous Noah himself?

Not easy being clean? It’s downright impossible.

[ Spoilers are contained in the following sections. ]

Positive Elements

Not all the morals of Noah , the movie, are likely the same ones you’d glean from the biblical narrative. The two stories are far too different for that to be possible. But there are worthwhile points to ponder here:

Noah teaches his boys what he believes the Creator would have him teach. And he always tries to follow his God to the very best of his ability—no matter how hard or painful the task ahead might be. He twists things up sometimes, for sure, and that turns him into a bit of a madman for a while, but Noah always sees himself as a servant—a tool in the hands of a mighty God—and thus is willing to subjugate himself to, by definition, a greater good.

Noah’s wife, Naameh, loves him through all of this craziness, sticking with him through, literally, high water if not hell itself. That loyalty, though, doesn’t dim her vision of what right is and how wrong looks. When Noah begins to believe that their own family should not be exempted from God’s righteous wrath, she furiously works to rein him in—to show him that love is just as important as justice and judgment. Likewise, Noah’s son Shem and his new love, Ila, staunchly protect their baby children, risking their own lives to keep them safe. And Ila spearheads the family’s rescue of an injured little girl whose own family has been killed.

The Watchers—who are said to have been created on the second day and then punished by the Creator for helping the sons of Cain and then slaughtered by Cain’s offspring for their trouble—take a cosmic risk by again aiding mankind. They help Noah build the ark and, when the evil Tubal-cain leads an army against Noah, defend the family and the ark with their lives.

Noah and his family are seriously committed vegetarians. But the movie’s environmentalism isn’t merely a call to stave off global warming by recycling: It’s used as a deeper metaphor, a way to further distinguish the mindset of Seth (which responsibly fosters God’s creation) with the mode of Cain (which is to pillage and destroy). Even a flower, Noah tells his son, serves the Creator’s will better in the ground than in someone’s pocket. “They have a purpose,” Noah says—to spread seeds and propagate. Or, as he will later say, to be fruitful and multiply.

Spiritual Elements

Noah goes pretty far off the Sunday school flannel board to tell its story, beginning with “the beginning.” Noah recounts the story of creation to his children, reciting what happened on each of the six days. Using time-lapse photography, his account blends the Bible with Darwinian evolution, as animals change into other animals in rapid-fire sequence. (And most of the creatures on the ark appear to be evolutionary forebears of the ones we live with today.)

Noah acknowledges that it didn’t take long for mankind to start messing things up. We see glimpses of Adam, Eve and the forbidden fruit, with Satan creepily slithering out of another snake. And Cain’s murder of Abel is seen as a critical turning point for humanity’s relationship with its Creator.

The Nephilim (who make just a cameo appearance in Genesis 6:4) are given significant roles here. They’re meshed with the concept of the Watchers (angels mentioned in Daniel and fleshed out in the apocryphal books of Enoch), and we’re told that they’re angels who were made into rock-like creatures as punishment for helping humans after the Fall. It’s said that God (only called the Creator here) has rejected them and refuses to let them return home even when they die. But after they help Noah, we watch them zoom up to heaven in a beam of light, finally accepted back into the Creator’s good graces.

Unlike the direct commands issued by God to Noah in Genesis, His will is obscured in Noah . The titular character receives only visions, their meaning never fully clear to him. And because Noah and his family deeply desire to do God’s will exactly, this exacerbating lack of communication creates some serious conflicts—an echo of sometimes our own uncertainty of what God would have us do now.

Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, wields some mysterious powers: He puts Noah’s son Shem to sleep with a touch and, through his blessing, heals a wound. (Whether this is sorcery or a gift from God we’re never told.) A magical seed he gives Noah (he says it’s from the Garden of Eden) produces, when planted, a flow of water and then an entire forest of trees on a barren plane.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Shem playfully tackles Ila in the forest and kisses her passionately, his mouth working its way to her belly, where she bares a deep scar. Ila makes him stop. She is, we’re told, barren because of a childhood injury, and she tearfully pleads with Noah to find Shem a wife who can provide him children and, thus, happiness.

In another scene Ila runs to Shem and begins kissing him like crazy, hurriedly stripping off clothes. (The camera briefly spies skin and then moves away.) Later, she discovers she’s pregnant, and the ecstatic couple ask Noah for his blessing.

Adam and Eve are seen naked (they’re glowing and the shot is from a distance), as is a drunken Noah. (Nothing explicit is seen.) Naameh’s draped top reveals quite a lot of cleavage in one scene. In a town, girls and women are traded for food.

Violent Content

We repeatedly see a silhouette replay of Cain killing Abel with a rock. And at one juncture, the sequence morphs into warlike conflicts throughout the ages, with the killer and victim becoming soldiers from ancient to modern times. In ditches and valleys piles of dead bodies and/or skeletons are seen multiple times. We watch men pull down and kill the giant Watchers. A fiery cataclysm decimates a throng of warriors. Fire from heaven kills even more. People are bashed and stomped and trampled and stabbed and hacked and, of course, drowned.

Tubal-cain kills Noah’s father with a hatchet blow to the head, with blood-squirting results. Noah kills quite a few assailants, showing himself to be pretty handy with a blade. Angry that hunters have shot an animal, he plucks the sharp projectile from the beast’s bleeding side and uses it to fight the four men responsible, killing at least a couple of them. Other animals have their throats cut or their guts grotesquely spilled. In a bloody marketplace, live animals are torn apart and eaten raw. Noah has visions of countless drowned humans and animals, and he walks on ground saturated with blood. A girl gets caught in an animal trap (metal points piercing her leg).

Noah comes to believe that God means to end the human race entirely. He tells his family that once they arrive in a cleansed world, they’ll all grow old and die—forbidding his children to take wives (and also actively thwarting them). When Ila gets pregnant, Noah tells her that if the baby proves to be female (and thus a potential mother), he’ll kill the infant as soon as she leaves the womb. Indeed, later we see him clutching a knife pointed at a baby’s face. And for much of the movie, Noah stands as a fearsome figure of death, glowering with his unsheathed blade. In one case, he callously allows a young woman to die by way of a trampling horde when he refuses to help her.

Crude or Profane Language

“D‑‑n” is uttered four times. (But in context, the word is used correctly, with Tubal-cain declaring that he’ll be “damned” by the Creator no matter what he does. And because he does what he does, he is indeed damned.)

Drug & Alcohol Content

Noah, believing he let the Creator down, gets rip-roaring drunk, spending what would seem to be days guzzling down wine. He finally passes out, naked. (We see him from a distance, lying face down.) Methuselah gives Noah some tea that appears to be drugged, leading to a strange vision.

Other Noteworthy Elements

A prideful power play develops between Noah and his son Ham, leading the lad to nearly betray his own flesh and blood, and finally leave the family altogether. “Love” is said to be the “only thing they need to be good.”

Long before its release, Noah was deluged in controversy. Some Christians praise the film for its themes of redemption and love winning out over malevolence, others revile it for taking so many liberties with the biblical account.

Director Darren Aronofsky offers a spectacular and often moving story, but it’s obviously not the story of Noah. There’s more Tolkien than Torah here, really, and more of Aronofsky himself than both of those. Perhaps this director made the Creator in his own image—full of mercy, magic and environmental sobriety. If you uncouple the movie from the Bible and take Noah as imaginative, fantastic fiction, it can begin to work. But hooked as it is to such a sacred narrative, well, let’s just say it’ll be hard for some Christians to swallow whole this fractious fable.

Harry Potter fans expect Harry Potter movies to stay mostly true to the book. History buffs are known to require historical dramas to follow actual history. I think it’s reasonable, then, for Christians to ask that the stories most precious to them be treated with faithfulness—and that movies based on them would, y’know, stay at least in the ballpark. But Mr. Aronofsky has chosen a different tack, and so the ancient truth about Noah becomes more of a pretext for Middle-earth rock monsters and a tormented, half-mad Noah ready to kill his own kin.

Still, Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, believes there is redemption to be found. “Darren Aronofsky is not a theologian, nor does he claim to be,” Daly says. “He is a filmmaker and a storyteller, and in Noah , he has told a compelling story. The film expresses biblical themes of good and evil; sin and redemption; justice and mercy. It is a creative interpretation of the scriptural account that allows us to imagine the deep struggles Noah may have wrestled with as he answered God’s call on his life. This cinematic vision of Noah’s story gives Christians a great opportunity to engage our culture with the biblical Noah, and to have conversations with friends and family about matters of eternal significance.”

What kind of conversation might that be? Well, possibly one exploring just who God really is. We see glimpses of His character in Noah: His beautiful design, His sorrow that humanity ran away from Him, His righteous anger and determination to wipe the slate clean and start again. He chose Noah—whom the Bible calls “the last righteous man”—because he’s the guy who best understands God’s sorrow and anger and justice. Or, as Noah himself puts it, “He knew I would complete the task, nothing more.”

And sometimes it’s even in the things the film changes that spiritual lessons emerge. One example: As Noah drifts into the idea that he’s been tasked with ending all human life on earth, he comes to believe that the Creator is calling on him to kill his own granddaughters. He’s desperately determined to follow through … until it comes time to actually complete the terrible charge.

“I looked down at those two little girls,” he confesses, “and all I had in my heart was love.”

It’s poignant that Noah, the last righteous man, felt such love in that moment. Because that’s what God feels when He looks down on us. We are sinners. We constantly fail Him. We deserve death, He tells us. But in His eyes, we’re also beautiful. And God’s love for us—His mercy and grace—ends up saving us.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Noah Reviews

The film questions a creator’s obligations at earthly and spiritual levels, with complications that concern masculine privilege to color the margins. "Noah" doesn’t preach to the choir. It dares the choir to keep up amid minor chords & melodic inversion.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2024

As an exercise in retelling the story, it'll draw more laughs and grunts of incomprehension than actual admiration. Still, Noah is a brave film – and that's always worth appreciating.

Full Review | Apr 18, 2023

Ancient mythology and modern cosmology come together in the story of Genesis, told in Noah’s own words and illustrated with imagery reminiscent of Cosmos, a wedding of science and religion in a way respectful of both.

Full Review | Jan 7, 2023

It’s a movie that teases us with what it could have been but ultimately stumbles because of what it actually is.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2022

In the end, perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to Aronofsky is that he’s made a compelling discussion piece, but a frustratingly uneven one.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 15, 2022

A thought-provoking take on a familiar story that will keep you guessing until the end credits roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 1, 2021

It's a film that makes one think and feel and, yes, wonder.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 18, 2020

The film is a visceral spectacle in Darren Aronofsky's catalog. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 25, 2020

I didn't hate it.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2020

Who knew that the infamous 40 days and 40 nights could have that much of an edge to it?

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 6, 2020

Missed opportunities.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2020

If any disclaimer is necessary concerning its loose inspiration from Christian mythology, it's that the ambitious venture is colossally silly and unerringly stale.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2019

Bolstered by strong performances by the entire cast, strong visuals, and a filled out script, "Noah" may be one of the better biblical adaptations.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2019

It takes all of five minutes for Noah to deliver a Dikembe Mutombo-like swat to expectations of Sunday school bible study.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Aug 6, 2019

However conflicted this flawed representation of archetypal mythology may make you feel, it is certainly worth seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 31, 2019

Despite Noah's vivid surface appeal, it ultimately fails to recreate the tale's original sense of thematic unity, and thus becomes acutely aware of its own deprived meaning.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2019

A cinematic enigma -- both maddening and magnificent... "Noah" requires a leap of faith, but if you are willing to take a chance it is a film that will challenge and impress.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2019

Throw in some plot holes that left me annoyed, and it was a rough way to spend two hours and 18 minutes.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

Noah is a worthy, ambitious mess of a movie, and as a deeply personal new take on an old tale, it's the kind of mess we could use a bit more often from Hollywood.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 22, 2018

Once the film has blown it's CGI load, it turns into a kitchen sink drama, an episode of Eastenders as directed by Mike Leigh.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2018

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Why ‘Noah’ Is the Biblical Epic That Christians Deserve

REARVIEW: He who has ears to hear, let him buy a ticket to Darren Aronofsky's extraordinary movie.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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Thank God (seriously) for Darren Aronofsky .

In his flawed, fascinating and altogether extraordinary “ Noah ,” this ever-audacious filmmaker has given us a bold and singular vision of Old Testament times — a picture that dares to handle a sacred text not with the clunky messages and stiff pieties we’ve come to expect from so much so-called “Christian cinema,” but rather with a thrilling sense of personal investment and artistic risk. Crucially, Aronofsky approaches Scripture not with a purist’s reverence but with a provocateur’s respect, teasing out the hard, soul-searching questions that the Word of God, if you take it as such (and I do), was always meant to inspire. He has made a gravely powerful, fully committed, sometimes blisteringly angry film that will fit few Christians’ preconceptions of what a biblical epic should look, sound or feel like, and believe me when I say that this is cause not for condemnation, but for honest rejoicing.

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Certainly it’s safe to say that at least a few Paramount executives are popping champagne corks — or, at the very least, heaving sighs of relief — in light of the news that “Noah,” after weathering months of iffy pre-release chatter, opened this weekend to an impressive $77.6 million worldwide ($44 million Stateside), some of which was surely driven not just by widespread curiosity, but also by largely favorable reviews. It should be noted that several of those recommendations were written by critics for Christian publications — many of whom, while eloquent and enthusiastic in their praise, understandably took pains to assure their readers that they could buy a ticket to “Noah” with a clear conscience, without fearing that they were somehow sullying their God-fearing minds in the process.

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As my friend Brett McCracken wrote for the Christian cultural magazine Converge: “Aronofsky may not himself be a believer, but his film respects belief and engages with it without hostility or condescension. I hope believers will engage Aronofsky’s film in the same way.” I couldn’t have put it better myself, although I’m grateful that, as someone writing for a largely secular audience, I rarely have to explain to readers why they should welcome a film that challenges rather than coddles; that generates questions rather than answers; that brings us into sympathetic identification with a deeply flawed protagonist; and that forces us to grapple with the very idea of faith and exactly what it’s good for.

All of which “Noah” accomplishes, rather remarkably. Feverish and beautiful, sometimes grandiose but always deeply felt, borderline playful yet undeniably sincere in its engagement with its source material, Aronofsky’s film is a marvelously fluid creation, and easily the class act so far among a recent spate of religious-themed movies that includes “Son of God” and “God’s Not Dead” (and will continue this year with “Heaven Is for Real,” “Left Behind” and “Exodus”). The invaluable lesson of “Noah” is that a sincere and authentic film about religious faith need not be strident, heavy-handed or unimaginative; nor must it cleave to the very letter of Scripture, timidly and reverently, in order to get at its deeper truths and insights. However it fares commercially from here, and whatever culture wars are waged in its name, “Noah” feels, at this moment, like a triumph and a breakthrough — a film that brings a well-worn story to such vivid and unpredictable dramatic life that we are compelled to take its characters seriously and grapple with their dilemmas anew. It is the biblical epic that Christian audiences, whether they realize it or not, have long deserved and waited for.

In its breathtaking sweep and ambition, as well as its bottomless humanity, “Noah” makes an utter joke of all the unexamined attacks, the politically slanted dismissals and, yes, that staggeringly inane Faith Driven Consumer poll that Variety reported on back in February, which asked Christian audiences if they would feel satisfied with a movie that “replaces the Bible’s core message with one created by Hollywood.” There’s a major misconception in the framing of that question, and it’s the notion that Hollywood — a sprawling, financially driven, morally pluralistic entity that employs believers and nonbelievers alike — has a single monolithic agenda when it comes to moviegoers of faith. If there is a common attitude with regard to that widely misunderstood and highly coveted audience, it has generally been a tendency to woo and pander, rather than to startle and offend.

Fortunately, Aronofsky is not Hollywood, or even a stand-in for Hollywood. Given his recent tussles with Paramount over creative control of the picture, and also perhaps the apt comparisons that have been drawn between “Noah” and Martin Scorsese’s far more contentious “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Aronofsky is and perhaps always will be a consummate studio outsider — the sort of filmmaker who, even coming off an Oscar nomination and $329 million in worldwide box office for “Black Swan,” and working on a scale and budget far in excess of anything he’s done before, maintains a principled distance from the system and hews relentlessly to his own creative path.

Watching “Noah,” which makes a few concessions to epic fantasy/blockbuster conventions without sacrificing its fundamental seriousness and moral urgency, you get the feeling that Aronofsky (who wrote the script with his regular collaborator Ari Handel) read the Genesis account of Noah’s life and saw in it, perhaps, a vessel for some of the themes and obsessions that have haunted him his entire career. This is a director whose characters often know they are destined for greatness, but for whom greatness proves a terrible burden; to watch “Noah” is to recognize the tortured sensibility behind the lurching attempts at transcendence in “The Fountain,” the unnerving altered states of “Requiem for a Dream,” the brutal physical and spiritual sacrifices endured by the protagonists of “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan.” You also sense that Aronofsky realized there was a place for his anguished dramatics and trippy aesthetics in the annals of great religious artwork, and that there was no reason why the challenge of biblical interpretation should be off-limits to a filmmaker just because he happens to be a staunch environmentalist, a brilliant fantasist and, yes, a self-avowed atheist.

All of this should trouble the sort of Christian, I suppose, who imagines that the proper care of the Earth is strictly the domain of those godless liberal tree-huggers; that our readings of the Bible should never stir in us a sense of wonder or supernatural possibility; and that the only artists who could possibly extract anything of value from a religious text are those who readily subscribe to its teachings. To believe such a thing, of course, is to ignore one of the great recurring themes of Scripture, which is that God can and does use the most unlikely of individuals to glorify His name and advance His purposes, and is indeed rather fond of subverting our prejudices about who and what is good, moral and worthy of emulation.

Those prejudices are exactly what “Noah” is targeting, not least through the figure of Noah himself — who, as superbly played by Russell Crowe, subtly morphs from a dutiful servant of the Creator into a very human monster with a terrifying streak of delusional megalomania. Entrusted with mankind’s survival, Noah casts himself as mankind’s executioner; having lost all hope in humanity, he comes to believe that God has given up hope as well. Aronofsky isn’t trying to smear an unassailable Old Testament hero here: He’s simply acknowledging the universal human capacity for goodness and evil, compassion and indifference, while also suggesting how men in the grip of God-given convictions can be lured to the brink of madness and beyond. And the director takes pains to shows us how that madness comes about, in a crucial scene that peers, alongside Noah, deeply into the abyss of clawing, festering human depravity: Watching it, you almost come to understand exactly why even a magnanimous Creator might find a cataclysmic flood to be not merely the just response, but also the merciful one.

Time and again in “Noah,” you sense Aronofsky searching for that sympathetic middle ground, not least in a quietly stunning evocation of the origins of the universe that, like a similar sequence in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” generously bridges the ideological gap between creation and evolution. This is a film far more determined to stir and provoke than to offend — and, in its own way, to do what teachers and ministers the world over have done for centuries, which is to illuminate an ancient story in order to explore its applicability to the present. For those willing to watch and listen, “Noah” speaks powerfully to our morally confused times, predicated as it is on the existence of a God who can nonetheless feel painfully absent in the midst of human suffering. This is a world where miracles are readily observable and giant rock monsters walk the earth (presented with a disarming matter-of-factness entirely in keeping with the story’s prediluvian mythology), yet where the knowledge of God’s supremacy does not alleviate the often unfathomable burden of following Him — or, indeed, ensure that anyone will want to follow Him at all.

Aronofsky has proudly declared “Noah” to be “the least biblical film ever made.” To which I would humbly suggest that this brilliant filmmaker and deranged visionary may not be, in this particular instance, the most honest or reliable assessor of his own work. Aronofsky’s appreciation of Scripture can be selective and apocryphal, but it’s also wide-ranging and astute, treating the slender account of Noah’s ark as a sort of narrative prism through which the entire book of Genesis can be dramatically filtered, from Adam and Eve to Abraham and Isaac. And yet the director also has an eye for the most quietly haunting of textual details, as when he dramatizes a lesser-known but significant detail from Noah’s life, well after the flood has subsided, in which the old man falls down, drunk and naked, and his son Ham looks upon him with contempt.

It’s a piece of Scripture that has called forth no shortage of competing interpretations, and the one that Aronofsky offers up is beautifully simple and compassionate: Whether in the world that has passed away or in the one that is still to come, human beings will never find themselves beyond the need for mercy. Not least among the revelations in this “least biblical” of epics is that it’s an Old Testament story that looks forward, in a spirit of hushed and hopeful anticipation, toward the New.

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Noah: film review.

Russell Crowe stars in Darren Aronofsky's Bible-based epic.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture’s most primal stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah . Whereas for a century most Hollywood filmmakers have tread carefully and respectfully when tackling biblical topics in big-budget epics aimed at a mass audience, Aronofsky has been daring, digging deep to develop a bold interpretation of a tale which, in the original, offers a lot of room for speculation and invention. The narrative of the global flood that wiped out almost all earthly life is the original disaster story, one that’s embraced by most of the major world religions, which means that conservative and literal-minded elements of all faiths who make it their business to be offended by untraditional renditions of holy texts will find plenty to fulminate about here. Already banned in some Middle Eastern countries, Noah will rile some for the complete omission of the name “God” from the dialogue, others for its numerous dramatic fabrications and still more for its heavy-handed ecological doomsday messages, which unmistakably mark it as a product of its time. But whether you buy these elements or not, this is still an arresting piece of filmmaking that has a shot at capturing a large international audience both for its fantasy-style spectacle and its fresh look at an elemental Bible story most often presented as a kiddie yarn.

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Critics Consensus

Critics consensus: noah is a fresh take on an old tale, plus, sabotage is too bloody; cesar chavez is too bloodless; bad words is vulgar fun; and the grand budapest hotel is certified fresh.

This week at the movies, we’ve got an Ark builder ( Noah , starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly ); an elite DEA agent ( Sabotage , starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sam Worthington ); a labor leader ( Cesar Chavez , starring Michael Peña and John Malkovich ); a full-service concierge ( The Grand Budapest Hotel , starring Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan ); and a grown-up spelling bee champ ( Bad Words , starring Jason Bateman and Kathryn Hahn ). What do the critics have to say?

If you’re going to retell one of the most epic stories in human history, you’ve got to go big. That’s exactly what director Darren Aronofsky did with Noah , and critics say this ambitious adaptation of one of the Old Testament’s most familiar tales is visually majestic and powerfully acted, though the screen is so stuffed that the main narrative occasionally gets sidetracked. Russell Crowe stars as Noah, a devout man who lives in harmony with nature. When Noah has visions of an apocalyptic flood, he builds an Ark and hits the high seas, encountering some fearsome descendants of Cain along the way. The pundits say that while Noah ‘s grasp can sometimes exceed its reach, it’s a robust, inventive re-imagining of a timeless legend. (Check out this week’s Total Recall, in which we run down some of cinema’s most memorable biblical epics .)

Hollywood has turned out plenty of action films about morally ambiguous law enforcement agents, and critics say Sabotage offers little beyond an overabundance of gore to distinguish itself from the pack. After stealing a huge amount of cash during a raid, several members of a DEA unit are mysteriously murdered. It’s up to the team’s leader, John “Breacher” Wharton (Arnold Schwarzenegger), to find out who’s responsible. The pundits say the actors are fine, but Sabotage is predictably plotted and cynically violent. (Check out our video interviews with the cast and crew .)

Cesar Chavez

Even the most extraordinary lives don’t follow a three-act structure, so it’s understandable that filmmakers must cut a few corners when making a biographical film. Unfortunately, critics say Cesar Chavez is an earnest but muted portrait of the influential labor leader that fails to capture its subject’s fire and complexity. The film follows Chavez (Michael Pena) during his extended campaign to secure better earnings and conditions for migrant farm workers in California. The pundits say Cesar Chavez serves as a decent introduction to the man, but mostly it dramatizes his work and achievements without bringing them to vivid life.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson is undoubtedly one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive stylists, and critics say he’s got another winner with em> The Grand Budapest Hotel , a madcap, bittersweet period piece with outstanding performances from its illustrious cast. Ralph Fiennes stars as Gustave, a concierge at a swanky European hotel with an eccentric guest list. When Gustave’s rich octogenarian paramour bequeaths him an invaluable painting, he draws the ire of her outraged son; chaotic hilarity ensues. The pundits say the Certified Fresh Grand Budapest Hotel is laugh-out-loud funny, stylistically bold, and poignantly acted — in other words, what we’ve come to expect from Anderson, and more.

Jason Bateman makes his directorial debut with Bad Words , and critics say that while this vulgar black comedy goes a little soft in the final stretch, it’s a fine showcase for the star’s sardonic, misanthropic persona. Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-something who finds a loophole that allows him to enter a national spelling bee. He proceeds to insult his juvenile competitors and appall their parents, while a reporter tries to discover what’s motivating his ruthless campaign. The pundits say Bad Words is both tasteless and slackly plotted, but it’s irreverent, well-acted, and often outrageously funny. (Check out 24 Frames for a gallery of actors with noteworthy debuts behind the camera .)

Also opening this week in limited release:

Brothers Hypnotic , a documentary about a band comprised of the offspring of jazz legend Phil Cohran, is at 100 percent.

Mistaken for Strangers , a documentary about the relationship between the National singer Matt Berninger and his brother Tom , is at 86 percent.

The Raid 2 , an action flick about a cop who goes undercover to finish off the gang members who survived The Raid: Redemption , is at 78 percent.

Hide Your Smiling Faces , a meditative drama about a pair of boys coming to terms with mortality, is at 75 percent.

Breathe In , starring Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones in a drama about an exchange student whose arrival unsettles her American host family, is at 63 percent.

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REVIEW: Darren Aronofsky’s <i>Noah</i> Movie: Better Than the Book

REVIEW: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah Movie: Better Than the Book

M ovies aren’t supposed to be this good this early in the year. The first three months of 2014 have served up a top animated feature ( The Lego Movie ), a splendid documentary about a mad artist ( Jodorowsky’s Dune ) and that indescribable delight of The Grand Budapest Hotel . Now, to round out the trimester, Darren Aronofsky brings wild ambition and thrilling artistry to one of the Old Testament’s best-known, most dramatic, least plausible stories — Noah and the ark — with Russell Crowe infusing the role of God’s first seaman and zookeeper with all his surly majesty.

In Genesis 6:8 , God is displeased with the wickedness of men and resolves to kill all humans along with the rest of the earth’s creatures. (What did they do?) “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created — people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” God commands the one righteous man, Noah, to build an ark, summon his family and two of every kind of living thing, and fill it with provisions for the entire menagerie. SPOILER ALERT FOR INFIDELS ONLY: After many months at sea, the water subsides, the ark’s inhabitants disperse and God promises Noah, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind … nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done … Be fruitful and multiply.” Like a golfer with an indulgent scorekeeper, humanity gets a mulligan. The penalty: all but one family must die.

In pop culture, the ark story has multiplied dozens of times, usually with a smile. John Huston played Noah as a benign patriarch in his 1966 The Bible … In the Beginning . Danny Kaye sang his way through the role in Richard Rodgers’ Broadway musical Two by Two ; and in Evan Almighty , Steve Carell was a modern Noah who got pooped on by birds and beasts alike. A rare adaptation with anything like Aronofsky’s sociopolitical seriousness was the 1928 silent film Noah’s Ark , which compares the flood (“A deluge of water drowning a world of lust”) to World War I (“A deluge of blood drowning a world of hate!”). Opening a year before the stock-market crash — which could be seen as heavenly judgment on the Jazz Age — and meant as a message of peace, Michael Curtiz’s movie stoked its own fatalities: three stunt players died during the shooting of the flood sequence.

(READ: Tim Newcomb on the battle over Noah )

The waters are mostly digital now; no humans were killed in the making of this Noah . But Aronofsky, emboldened by the $330 million worldwide box-office take of his last film, Black Swan , took some huge artistic and canonical gambles with this dead-serious, borderline-delirious movie. (So did Paramount Pictures and the movie’s other backers; Noah cost about $130 million to produce.) Sampling from the Old Testament and its apocrypha, plus bits of The Whole Earth Catalog , the director has hatched his most daring film since the 2006 The Fountain , a sadly underappreciated work that imagined the world’s violent past and utopian future through the eyes of a man (Hugh Jackman) trying to find a cure for his wife’s spreading cancer.

Noah is about a man whose mission is to obliterate Earth’s past and godfather its future. Replacing the word God with Creator and taking other scriptural liberties, the movie risks confusing those who don’t take the Bible literally and alienating those who do. The movie has been banned in several Muslim countries, including Indonesia , Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates . In the West, it has won some converts. Crowe and the Noah team secured an audience with Pope Francis , and an urgent campaign from Paramount brought a flock of evangelicals aboard Aronofsky’s ark.

(READ: Religious leaders give their blessing to Noah )

That’s a coup in itself, for Noah recasts the first doomsday story as the first climate-change tale — a disaster-movie scenario that could soon recur. For the Old Testament God, simply insert nature’s God (the Founding Fathers’ name for the Creator) and see the flood as a predictor for nature’s rebuking modern industry for polluting and overheating the atmosphere. Scientists predict that within decades most of the world’s coastal cities will be underwater if emissions are not drastically curtailed. Aronofsky’s text, disguised as a fable, is a warning of this inconvenient truth . He might be paraphrasing the old spiritual: “No more fire, the flood this time.”

In Aronofsky’s Bible-era setting for this toxic environment, Noah is a survivalist taking revenge on urban iniquity. Seeing the industrialized cities around him as wicked for their destruction of the environment as much as their sensual excesses, Noah assumes power of life and death over all living things. This fable of early man is The Croods with a Mensa IQ — and when the rabble storms the ark, it’s a home-invasion thriller of a family taking refuge in their divine-fallout shelter. As the unsaved hordes climb the hulls of the boat like zombies scaling the Jerusalem walls in World War Z , our hero fights to keep them out. It’s the end of the world as they know it, and he feels fine: Apocalypse Noah.

(READ: TIME’s reviews of The Croods and World War Z )

In the Genesis version, God does all the talking; Noah is his silent servant and enabler. But in the gospel according to Aronofsky and co-screenwriter Ari Handel, the Lord doesn’t boom basso profundo or soothe in Morgan Freeman’s baritone. Indeed, he speaks not in words at all but in visions that might be dreams aided by hallucinogens. The Aronofsky Israel is a land of magic, where rock giants that were once men (the Nephilim) stride the earth, where trees instantly bloom around Noah to provide wood for the ark and where animals flock to the building site as if from supernatural bidding. (Once inside, they are sedated so as not to devour one another.) In this mythic realm, Noah’s trance-revelation — of being submerged as creatures swim past him toward a boat on the surface — has to be the Creator’s command to build the ark. “Fire consumes, water cleanses,” Noah says. “He destroys all, but only to start again.”

To buttress the biblical recounting, Aronofsky imports elements of fantasy literature — the Nephilim, the stone-man Watchers, similar to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ents, who help Noah construct the ark and fend off invaders — and Shakespearean tragedy. From Genesis 4 the movie borrows the character of Tubal-Cain, “the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.” (Called the King of the Nephilim in the 1928 Noah’s Ark , he nearly succeeds in stowing away on the boat — a plot device Aronofsky expands on.) Here, as played by the fiercely swaggering Ray Winstone, Tubal-Cain is not only the thug chieftain of the city sinners, leading the charge on the ark, but also the man Noah saw kill his own father. One of his sons is Ham, but Noah’s true spiritual kin is Hamlet.

Ransacking genres far and wide, Aronofsky also samples art-film cosmology. He recapitulates the first chapters of Genesis (Noah was just the ninth generation after Adam) with quick images of a snake and an apple that pulses like a human heart, and when Noah briefly doubts his mission, he sees himself in reptilian form, as if he were in danger of becoming his own evil-twin snake. Aronofsky’s visual summary of the world’s creation, a story that Noah tells his sons, is like the 17-min. history of the universe in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life retold in a minute or two, but no less imposingly oneiric.

(READ: Corliss on The Tree of Life at Cannes and beyond )

This Noah is not a genial Doctor Dolittle. Burdened by his foreknowledge of the flood and its consequences, he’s in no mood to talk with the animals. Even in the early scenes, he’s more herbalist than PETA activist. He is sobered by the realization that his awful task is to save his family — wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly, who won an Oscar as Crowe’s wife in A Beautiful Mind ), sons Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll) and Shem’s betrothed Ila (Emma Watson) — while letting everyone else die. Naameh and the rest realize that too. They respect Noah’s leadership even as they must question some of his decisions.

ACTUAL SPOILER ALERT: Once devoted to replenishing the earth with his children’s spawn, Noah now accepts his and the world’s mortality. “Everything that was beautiful, everything that was good, we shattered,” he says, proclaiming, “We will work, complete our task and die with the rest.” Naameh is past child-bearing age, and Ila was rendered barren from a beating she endured as a child. Noah is disturbed when he learns that his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) has laid a shaman’s hands on the girl and restored her fertility.

(SEE: The trailer for Noah )

In the movie’s two most intimate and shocking sequences, Noah keeps Ham from saving Na’el (Madison Davenport), a sweet refugee from Tubal-Cain’s land, and bringing her on the ark as his bride. He then tells the pregnant Ila that if she bears a daughter, he will kill the newborn. He has become the angry Old Testament God who ordered Abraham to slay his son Isaac before calling off the sacrifice. Apparently the Almighty’s genocidal impulse in his flood scheme is contagious; it has spread to a man who has an even more severe view of humanity, deeming it unworthy of a do-over.

In the 1967 comedy Bedazzled , when Peter Cook as the devil boasts of his satanic powers, Dudley Moore as a modern Faust shouts, “You’re a bleedin’ nutcase!” “They said the same of Jesus Christ,” Cook protests, and Moore retorts, “They said it of a lot of nutcases too.” The very pertinent question in Noah is whether its hero is God’s chosen or a nutcase. Is he a visionary or just seeing things? Methuselah has told his grandson, “You must trust that he speaks in a way that you can understand,” so viewers are encouraged to take on faith Noah’s decision to build the ark. Later, when he must rely not on the whispers of the deity but on his own fallible resources, he may be only a willful man — a beautiful mind — driven toward fatal delusion. END SPOILER ALERT.

(SEE: Seven other movies based on the Bible )

In this Old Testament passion play, the director seemingly had the same influence on his actors that the Creator did on Noah. Along with Crowe, giving his strongest performance in years, they rise to meet Aronofsky’s ferocious commitment. Connelly, who looks as if she had been hewn from flint, is the voice of reason, the heart of besieged humanity. Watson reveals a mature intensity far beyond Harry Potter ‘s Hermione; her tears could be mankind’s own keening elegy. Hopkins, the one jolly soul in the family, is a sage from an earlier age — the mesmerist as optimist. And Winstone, representing all that is wily and rapacious, works from an animosity toward a God that will speak to the ark builder but not to him.

As Noah threatens to go off the rails, so does Noah . But that’s inspiring too: proof of a grownup artist struggling with big issues, and then resolving them to create a crazy-great statement that is also a superb entertainment. In its grand recklessness the movie is closest to Aronofsky’s debut feature, the 1998 Pi , in which Max Cohen, a neurotic mathematician, gets mixed up with a Hassidic sect that believes the string of numbers Max has discovered is a secret code sent by God. That movie cost $60,000, this one about 2,000 times as much. But both films live by Max’s creed: “I’m on the edge, and that’s where it happens.”

(SEE: Corliss’s review of ᴨ , aka Pi )

Big-time directors and the studios that bankroll them prefer to dwell in the comfortable, familiar center, where mammon is God and the only divine word comes from focus groups. So for Aronofsky to construct an expensive spectacle, and to throw liturgical and dramatic challenges like lightning bolts at every member of the audience, is hardly less an achievement than to build and float an ark 300 cubits long (450 ft., or 137 m). Rarely has a film that flirts this solemnly with ambition bending toward madness been so masterly in carrying its spectators to its heights and through its depths. On both levels, Noah is a water thrill ride worth taking.

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The 700 Club

CHRISTIAN MOVIE REVIEW

Review: noah, by janet rae contributing writer.

CBN.com - For the first time in cinematic history, the story of Noah comes to the big screen as a feature-length film in Darren Aronofsky's ambitious new release. The Academy Award nominated director and his co-screenwriter Ari Handel take audiences on a dramatic, provocative journey exploring the powerful themes of righteousness, courage, honor, temptation, sacrifice, faithfulness, grace, justice and mercy.

Noah takes on the momentous task of showing the Bible story when a man of faith obeyed God's command to build a boat before an apocalyptic flood covered the earth. Oscar winner Russell Crowe takes the lead as Noah, with Jennifer Connelly ( A Beautiful Mind ), Ray Winstone ( The Departed ), Emma Watson ( Harry Potter series) and Sir Anthony Hopkins ( The Silence of the Lambs ) in supporting roles.

This full-scale, visually epic presentation of Noah flashbacks to Creation and the fall of man, which ultimately leads to utter wickedness in the hearts of almost all of the earth's inhabitants. The state of humanity grieves God and in a series of artistic dreams, God reveals His plan to Noah. Aronofsky presents these plot points using his signature style of storytelling as he builds up to the devastation of the Great Flood. The film appropriately gives an authentic view of the events through the eyes of a mere man. The detailed representation of the ark and the beauty of God's creation are enchanting and wonderful.

Noah contains scenes of graphic violence and implied instances of sexual abuse. For these reasons and more (including a far shot of drunkenness and partial nudity), Noah is not recommended for children. The PG-13 rating of the film is warranted.

Though the film is full of visually compelling action and high intensity drama, some scenes do drag, prolonging the movement of the plot.

(Spoiler alert) It is noteworthy to mention that there are some surprises that could be a distraction for some audiences. Nephilim ("the Watchers"), though referenced in the Bible and other extra biblical sources, are not often associated with the Noah story, at least the Sunday School version most of us know. Their inclusion could cause some to disengage from these characters. Please know that this movie is not a reenactment of the biblical account, but one unique, cinematic take on the story. The filmmakers used the Jewish Midrash and the Book of Enoch as "extra" resources.

The overall presentation and artistry of Aronofsky's Noah is awe-inspiring. Its fluidity and attention to detail help to carry the plot through the story's end. The character development is provocative and humanizing, setting up introspective questions about justice, mercy, good, and evil. Noah affirms the biblical account found in the book of Genesis, Creation, man's original sin as the result of Adam and Eve, and the resulting wickedness in man that provoked the heart of God to release judgment. Scenes like these have never been seen on screen or depicted with such credibility.

Reminiscent of Gladiator and Braveheart , Noah has intense action and adventure sequences and heroic moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Crowe is a very believable Noah, revealing aspects of God's heart in various points in the film. The performances by the entire cast are riveting, engaging audiences to experience the emotions and traumatic, yet adventurous, journey of Noah and his family.

Though Aronofsky's interpretation of this Bible story is misguided and shrouded in controversy, Noah is a cinematic spectacle. Sadly, it is a film that rates high in the craft of movie making but completely misses the mark on facts. The faith community will be highly disappointed in Aronofsky's inability to convert Biblical truths into onscreen movie magic.

On a positive note, it is a movie that acknowledges Creation, reveals the sin nature of mankind, shows God's judgment, but most importantly illuminates His mercy.

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Jennifer Connelly, Russell Crowe, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ray Winstone in Noah (2014)

Metacritic reviews

90 The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture's most primal stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah.
80 Variety Scott Foundas Variety Scott Foundas It is never less than fascinating — and sometimes dazzling — in its ambitions.
80 Empire Dan Jolin Empire Dan Jolin Inventive, ambitious, brutal and beautiful: a potent mythological epic. But also wilfully challenging, as likely to infuriate as inspire, whether through its unmitigated Old Testament harshness or its eco-message revisionism. If only more blockbusters were like this.
75 McClatchy-Tribune News Service Roger Moore McClatchy-Tribune News Service Roger Moore It isn’t “The Ten Commandments” and Crowe is no Charlton Heston. But Noah makes Biblical myth grand in scope and intimate in appeal. The purists can always go argue over “God Isn’t Dead.” The rest of creation can appreciate this rousing good yarn, told with blood and guts and brawn and beauty, with just a hint of madness to the whole enterprise.
75 Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez Will Noah anger some rigid purists and scholars because of the liberties it takes? Perhaps. But the point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters.
70 The Dissolve Keith Phipps The Dissolve Keith Phipps It’s an unwieldy, sometimes overreaching effort, but the laudable ambition makes it easy to forgive some rough patches.
70 The New York Times A.O. Scott The New York Times A.O. Scott Mr. Aronofsky’s earnest, uneven, intermittently powerful film, is both a psychological case study and a parable of hubris and humility. At its best, its shares some its namesake’s ferocious conviction, and not a little of his madness.
63 Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips Neither fish nor fowl, neither foul nor inspiring, director and co-writer Darren Aronofsky's strange and often rich new movie Noah has enough actual filmmaking to its name to deserve better handling than a plainly nervous Paramount Pictures has given it.
58 The Playlist Charlie Schmidlin The Playlist Charlie Schmidlin When focused on the natural world and the internal thoughts of its characters, Noah positively crackles with the energy of a filmmaker inspired by a new perspective on classic material... But the latter half of the film, turgid and hamfisted throughout, cripples the film so severely that it makes one thankful for the added elements to Noah’s story.
50 IndieWire Eric Kohn IndieWire Eric Kohn The director's murky, ill-conceived take on the world's oldest disaster story contains some of the most pristine visuals produced on a mass studio scale in some time. But it's also constantly tethered to a dull, melodramatic series of events out of whack with any traditional interpretation of the material.
See all 46 reviews on Metacritic.com
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Parent reviews of.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 34 Reviews
Kids Say 52 Reviews

Parents Say

Based on 34 parent reviews

Parent Reviews

This title has:

Great messages

Report this review

Don’t waste your time with this.

Too much violence

ANTI-CHRIST

Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much consumerism
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Violent and deviates from Biblical story, but still compelling

In the bible he has 3 daughters and they all are married. him,his wife,his daughters and their husbands enter into the ark... and i never heard of him wanting to sacrifice his grandchildren... the movie is far from the bible. i like the fact that you are making a difference...god bless and godspeed.

Educational value

Truly unsettling.

Not god's noah, worst bible movie ever., what to watch next.

A Beautiful Mind

Cinderella Man

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Noah Review: Russell Crowe Brilliantly Builds an Ark
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COMMENTS

Noah (2014)
Darren Aronofsky fell off. Hard. Noah isn't even his worst movie. It's not even his SECOND worst. Rated 1/5 Stars • Rated 1 out of 5 stars 08/24/24 Full Review GABRIEL S This film is one of the ...
Noah movie review & film summary (2014)
Noah is still the anchor of this partly-waterborne epic. But in this version he is more of an action hero. When the flood waters rise, he changes again, becoming an antihero, and a menace to his own family; their ranks include Noah's wife wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), his sons Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll) and Shem's wife-to-be Ila (Emma Watson).
Is Noah Worth Watching? Breaking Down The 2014 Russell Crowe Movie's
Darren Aronofsky's 2014 biblical epic, Noah, has found its way to trending on Netflix, but its reviews indicate the film isn't for everyone. Orchestrated by one of the most fascinating 21st-century filmmakers, Noah is an off-beat addition to Darren Aronofsky's filmography, as it's his only massive blockbuster.Biblical stories tend to be divisive in film, with movies like The Last Temptation of ...
Noah (2014)
NOAH (2014) **1/2 Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth (voices of Nick Nolte & Frank Langella) Epic and grand undertaking by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (who collaborated on the adaptation with Ari Handel taking many liberties with its source) depicting the final days of Earth before the biblical 'great flood' laying waste to ...
Noah
Spiritual Elements. Noah goes pretty far off the Sunday school flannel board to tell its story, beginning with "the beginning." Noah recounts the story of creation to his children, reciting what happened on each of the six days. Using time-lapse photography, his account blends the Bible with Darwinian evolution, as animals change into other animals in rapid-fire sequence.
Noah
Noah is a worthy, ambitious mess of a movie, and as a deeply personal new take on an old tale, it's the kind of mess we could use a bit more often from Hollywood.
'Noah': The Bible Movie That Christians Deserve
Why 'Noah' Is the Biblical Epic That Christians Deserve REARVIEW: He who has ears to hear, let him buy a ticket to Darren Aronofsky's extraordinary movie.
Noah (2014)
Noah: Directed by Darren Aronofsky. With Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins. Noah is chosen by God to undertake a momentous mission before an apocalyptic flood cleanses the world.
Noah: Film Review
Noah's ultimate sense of having failed in his mission feels off-kilter given the overriding theme of providing the world with a fresh start, as does the inevitable question of with whom, exactly ...
Noah Reviews
"Noah" brings together a stellar ensemble cast, with Russell Crowe delivering a commanding performance in the titular role. Jennifer Connelly's emotive depth adds layers of complexity to her character, while Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, and Emma Watson shine brightly, each contributing their unique essence to the narrative.
Critics Consensus: Noah is a Fresh Take on an Old Tale
Noah 75%. If you're going to retell one of the most epic stories in human history, you've got to go big. That's exactly what director Darren Aronofsky did with Noah, and critics say this ambitious adaptation of one of the Old Testament's most familiar tales is visually majestic and powerfully acted, though the screen is so stuffed that the main narrative occasionally gets sidetracked.
REVIEW: Darren Aronofsky's Noah Movie: Better Than the Book
The waters are mostly digital now; no humans were killed in the making of this Noah.But Aronofsky, emboldened by the $330 million worldwide box-office take of his last film, Black Swan, took some ...
Noah Movie Review
Noah Movie Review. 1:50 Noah Official trailer. Noah. Parent and Kid Reviews. See all. Parents say (34) Kids say (52) age 15+ Based on 34 parent reviews . darrylh Adult. September 13, 2014 age 12+ NOAH borrows its story elements from the Bible, the Midrash and the Talmud, as well as the art of Gustav Dore. It is a true post modern retelling.
Noah (2014 film)
Noah is a 2014 American epic biblical drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ari Handel.Inspired by the biblical story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis and the Book of Enoch, [4] it stars Russell Crowe as Noah, along with Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins.. The film was released in North American theaters on ...
Noah: Christian Movie Review < Movies
CHRISTIAN MOVIE REVIEW Review: Noah By Janet Rae Contributing Writer. CBN.com - For the first time in cinematic history, the story of Noah comes to the big screen as a feature-length film in Darren Aronofsky's ambitious new release. The Academy Award nominated director and his co-screenwriter Ari Handel take audiences on a dramatic, provocative journey exploring the powerful themes of ...
Official Discussion: Noah [SPOILERS] : r/movies
To quote the note at the end of The New York Times's review: "Noah" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). "And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and only Noah remained alive, and ...
Noah (2014)
Noah (2014) - Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Menu. Movies. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. TV Shows. ... Metacritic reviews. Noah. 68. Metascore. 46 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com. 90.
Parent reviews for Noah
The movie begins with anti-biblical, man-made errors. "The Watchers" begin this movie and Scripture clearly does not include this. Right off the bat, not biblical. I do not reccomend this to anyone! In the movie, Noah wants to kill a baby. This is anti-Christ. Noah was an upright, righteous man, whom the LORD delighted in. This movie is terrible.
Noah movie review from a Christian perspective
Instead, the movie offers a more politically correct "sin," which is the lack of proper vegan philosophy and land management. In the Biblical account, God tells Noah to include the wives of his sons (Genesis 6:18), Shem, Ham, and Japheth when they enter the ark. However, in the movie, the sons have no wives.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Director of Photography

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