Not the Noah from Our Childhood

There has been a ton of hype about the Noah movie that opened on March 28. People love it and people hate it. What is the deal?

If you are looking to find a true to story rendition of a favorite Bible story, you certainly will not find it here. After the disclaimer “loosely based on the Bible story” in the opening credits, your expectations should not be high.

There have been plenty of articles written on the invalidity of the representation of the story, and the flaws in the portrayal of this event have been more than exploited. I will not attempt to reiterate the same flaws. This movie does not hold true to the account written in the Bible, and people are upset. However, what did people expect? Obviously a movie made from a Bible story will need to be infused with drama and angst in order to make it in the Hollywood scene. But I digress.

Even if you ignore the fact that the movie is supposed to be based off of the Bible story we grew up with, I am sorry to say it still is not the best of movies. While the computer generated imagery is incredible, the pointless drama stuffed into the plot is wearing and on the edge of being unbelievable.

Looking at it from an artistic viewpoint, it still fails to meet any grand expectations. Filmed in a world of gray, the movie seems to drag. The music is inspiring at times, but mostly contributes to the dark and foreboding feel of the movie. It seems as if the producer and director realized that they both hated the story of Noah and the Ark and decided to create a movie that portrayed nothing accurately except for their shared hatred.

If anything remotely positive can be said about this movie, at least it is moralistically stringent on animal rights activism and protecting the planet. Noah’s entire purpose is apparently saving the animals that have done nothing wrong and are thus the only things that God loves. Animals are the “good guys” in this version of the Noah story, while every last human is considered a “bad guy.” Even if it missed the mark on the whole point of the story, at least it is not advocating animal cruelty on top of that.

Overall, even if you divorced the storyline from any association with the biblical context, it would nonetheless be a boring movie with a pointless plot. If you feel called to view it, my advice is to wait until it hits Redbox. But truly, you will not be missing much if you do not see it.

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