Review: NOAH

Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson are under Darren Aronofsky's direction. Nothing else needs to be said. This is our review of 'NOAH'.

By Staff

The director of 'Pi', 'Requiem for a dream' and 'The Wrestler' to name a few, is an expert in making emotionally charged pictures. This time, he wrote the screenplay himself and thus worked with different angles and narratives.

There is no need for us to extend our explanation of the story because it's very basic and, for the most part, is attached to the one told for centuries. For those who aren't Catholics or just don't remember, in a few words, the story is this- a man is chosen by God to build an ark and place ALL the animals of the world (one male and one female of each species) inside in order to save them from a worldwide storm that will end all mankind.

Aronofsky uses all the key points he feels will help him tell the story but with A LOT of his own ideas, beginning with the "fallen angels" and a fantasy-like angle, similar to the one he used in 'The fountain of life'.

Analysis and opinion:

This movie is a somewhat difficult to analyze. On one hand we have a first-class cast playing characters that lack depth. On the other, a writer/director looking for ways to tell a familiar story but, in some sense, with a bit of a sarcastic tone about fanatics and religion-created blind beliefs.

So we don't get into any dense conversations that our small movie-website can't handle, we'll stick to cinematic aspects and that's it!

Aronofsky's direction is what you'd expect with many shots reflecting conflict between the characters onscreen and the emotional difficulties that each of the characters go through; though we have to say that the exasperation felt in his previous films wasn't there as much this time.

Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly's performances were the best ones. In his, we can clearly see the determination of a man determined to do as ordered by his creator during the first two acts and the enormous frustration that makes him doubt everything in the third. Connelly, though in a smaller role, shows us a woman devoted to her husband and her beliefs, always thinking about her family first and foremost, however.

Emma Watson (a big publicity stunt to pull a bigger audience) played 'Ila' and as Forrest Gump would say- that's all we can say about that...

The editing was great. The film is 138 minutes long but thanks to Aronofsky's script not focusing on the storm alone but in philosophies as well, the film runs smoothly.

The cinematography and the special effects aren't anything amazing but work for a film like this one.

Bottom-line: the flick is entertaining but suffers a lot from including or taking-on many aspects and different ideas that make it feel like it has no real identity.