So if I understand this correctly – every single human is a direct descendant of Noah …and Noah was a dick. Finally, The Bible starts to make sense to me. In the “capable” hands of Darren Aronofsky, the tale of Noah comes to life with mysticism and bewilderment. The man God chose to save all living things gets the spotlight and Arker Lewis can’t lose … well, sort of.
Let’s backtrack. Hmmm, where to start? I know. In the beginning, there was an idea. And it was good. Except that it wasn’t. Expanding the story of Noah’s Ark to a full length feature film is at best straining the limits of a Sunday School ditty and at worst taking another ride on the biblical gravy train. Most of this version does jive with the one we know: God sent a flood to devour the wicked, but he lets Noah in on the secret beforehand so Noah can save a pair of each living creature for future propagation. Yeah, we’re good there. Noah and fam are the last remaining descendents of Seth, the son of Eve who didn’t kill his brother. That, apparently, was a hard goal to match. The throng of wickedness God wants dispelled come from the line of Cain, who slew his brother Abel over trading cards or GI Joes or some such nonsense. So Noah gets the insider info and, in-between ducking the Cain hordes, builds a massive ark to weather the … weather.
The pre-historic stage here looks a great deal like The Road Warrior — barren, dry lands, ragged clothing and gangs of hooligans out for nothing more than slitting throats. But Noah doesn’t go for that; he’s a good family man, I think. Noah (Russell Crowe) comes off as the ultimate zoologist. He sees the job as to save the animals. That’s it. Sure, he’s all, “don’t pick the flowers” in the beginning, but when it comes to it, he’ll lose an entire forest to build a floating museum. And he doesn’t care what happens to humanity. In fact, he’s pretty good with humanity dying off. He even makes provisions for it. I’m not quite sure why he made the ark a shared experience. What we know is Darren Aronovsky’s Noah was quite fine with the extinction of homo sapiens at the expense of all other living species.
The weirdest part about this tale is Noah’s relationship with his new-to-puberty son Ham (Logan Lerman). Ham here sees the immediate problem with the whole destruction-of-humanity thing: no babes. This is, of course, one 
of the biggest issues with the Old Testament if taken as fact (which this movie buys into whole-heartedly) – Adam & Eve, originally the only two people in the world, had sons and only sons, so, um, where did the wives of Cain & Seth come from? Now my thought is, “hey, Ham, roll with it. God magically found wives for those guys … why not you? Give Him a chance.”
Instead, Ham’s like, “nooooooooo. Noah’s got Jennifer Connelly there; Shem here has Hermione (she’s barren, which is why Noah is good with this relationship), Japheth is just a kid, I’ve just reached puberty and now I’m a forced celibate? What is up with that?” Now, you gotta admit, the kid has a point. But the way Aronofsky handles it makes you wish Ham had never brought the thing up. First Noah has to think about how he’s gonna go about getting some Ham-love going. Then he gives up, so Ham tries it himself. And as this kid wanders around the kingdom trying to score before the rapture hits, we all realize how awkward this is. “Hey, you wanna be my wife before everybody dies?” Smooth, Romeo. Finally, kudos to the kid, he actually does find a reasonable mate. Unfortunately, the girl gets injured racing towards the ark, and given the choice between the possibility of Ham-on-wife, hold the blue balls, and Ham alone forever, Noah chooses the Ham radio option. Thanks, dad.
Now, clearly, I’m no biblical scholar. That said, I think I missed the part where there were big rock guys (The Watchers, fallen angels) guarding the ark from vandals. I wish I were kidding. See, the Cain people are all jerks. And the Cain men outnumber the women roughly 50-to-1, but they get, literally, three drops of rain and then suddenly chief Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone here doing his best Mickey Rourke) decides, “Noah was right! Let’s go kick his ass and take the ark.” Of course, why they let Noah live in peace ¼ mile from their “town” for a decade goes beyond reason – we’ve met the Cain people thrice before ark construction, each time with murderous intent. So, what, they decided to give it a rest for a decade, maybe, for shits and giggles? Anyway, a little rain comes down, and the Cain folks learn to murder again, awwww. But guarding the ark are 15-foot-tall living battle rocks. (Oh, and the battle-rocks, The Watchers, made fantastic slave labor during the building of the ark. Bless those guys.) And when
the battle happens, Lord of the Rings breaks out. I swear, it’s a straight ripoff of Ents v. Orcs at the end of The Two Towers. I was disappointed, a lot, until I realized an hour later, that was the good stuff.
Bottom line here, however, is the more this film lingers, the more dickish Noah becomes. He’s like a frat guy after he’s already gotten some. I’m not kidding when I say that on that ark where resides, like, the last six or so members of the human race, three of them are actively trying to kill Noah. How much of a dick do you have to be …?
I think somebody forgot to tell Darren Aronofsky that Noah was a good guy. Believers want to root for him because he listened to God. Non-believers want to root for him because he saved the animals. Portraying Noah as distant and unfeeling does nobody a favor. You’ve imagined a Noah that personally I wished had died once the ark was constructed; he had nothing but misery to offer past that point. And it’s not like the man was winning hearts before then. Want to see the Old Testament on the big screen? Go watch The Ten Commandments; at least that piece of bloated mythology had a hero you could get behind.
♪The Lord said to Noah
“You’re gonna be my monkey monkey
Lord said to Noah
“You’re gonna be my monkey monkey
Forget about kin you bigfat flunkee, flunkee
It’s time to cleanse the earth
The CGI fauna
Looked totally fake-y fake-y
CGI fauna
Looked totally fake-y fake-y
That’s how they fit, for goodness sake-y sake-y
Otherwise, the ark was too small
The family of Noah
They weren’t very happy happy
Family of Noah
They weren’t very happy happy
“You’ve treated all of us pretty crappy crappy”
Who do you think you are?
And ‘Nofsky was determined
To make another Swanny Swanny
‘Nofsky was determined
To make another Swanny Swanny
Instead he got folks sorta yawny yawny
Even when the film made sense
So rise and fall
While climbing up that mountain mountain
So rise and fall
While climbing up that mountain mountain
For God sakes don’t make
One more The Fountain Fountain
Oh no, too late, poor us♫
Rated PG-13, 138 Minutes
D: Darren Aronofsky
W: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Genre: A new look at the Old Testament
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Blind believers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Those with preconceived notions of Noah as a positive figure.
♪ Parody inspired by “Rise and Shine”
