Review: Noah

I've been waiting with anticipation to see Noah. Ever since I first heard of its production, I was quite excited to see what would eventuate. Considering the pedigree involved, I had high hopes. I am not religious at all, so it was really more the spectacle of epic proportions I was looking forward to.  Darren Aronofsky has proven himself to be quite a diverse director and Russell Crowe was born to play these kinds of roles. 

As mentioned, I have no religious angle to my review. Frankly, I don't care or know how close the story adheres to written scripture. I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the film does take a fantasy style approach. In some ways, I felt like I was watching a cross between Lord of the Rings and Waterworld with characters descended from Adam and Eve. I enjoyed the simple story of Good versus Evil - which is the ultimate good of man versus the very elements that make man horrible (consume, dominate and consume some more). It's because of this evil that the earth must be cleansed - pretty easy to follow.

Russell Crowe is, as per usual, in fine form as our good man Noah. The actors playing his wife and children are all pretty good as well. Ray Winstone as the ultimate evil guy is top notch. Cinematography, visual effects and score are excellent. The creation of earth sequence is quite spectacular. The Ark itself is very realistic, and the cgi used to show the animals populating the Ark is well done. The scripting is mostly good, but there are some dodgy lines thrown in here and there. With all the major elements being good to excellent, you'd think I loved it - right? Well, no, I didn't. 

For me, I found the movie to be a good effort, but not a hit out of park. It is well made, but I found myself not liking it as much I did The Fountain. I really couldn't tell you why exactly. Some moments felt slow to me, so I definitely think the runtime could have been trimmed. Walking out of the film, I felt as though I may never watch this movie again, but I know I should at some point in time. Perhaps my expectation of something epic and great was too high. I wanted to say it is excellent, great, a master piece, but, really, it is just plain old good (for now).

Rating:

3 out of 5.