Review of Noah (2013) by Jonah P — 08 Dec 2015

For my movie review, I watched the movie Noah. Noah starts off with a little background, telling of how Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and had three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain killed Abel, and then ran away. Cain's kin were a selfish people that didn't follow God. Seth followed the path of God, and his descendants were persecuted by Cain's, who were much more plentiful. Noah, one of the last descendants of Seth, spends most of his life avoided the kin of Cain, but one day, God tasks him with building an ark to save the innocents from God?s wrath. Noah then traveled to his grandfather, Methuseluh, for advice. After his visit with Methuseluh, water starts to flow from a spring in the middle of a wasteland, and an entire forest grows for Noah to use. Noah and his family start to build the ark, when animals start to show up at the ark. The descendants of Cain see the animals travelling to the ark, and follow due to their curiosity. They prepare for war, as Noah will not let them board the ark. Then one day, God sends the storm, and Noah closes the doors to the ark, and the people of Cain die. They spend a long time on the ark, and send two birds out to search for land, with the second coming back with an olive branch. Noah?s son then has twin girls, and Noah tries to kill them because God wants to extinguish the human race, but he can't do it. In the end, they live out their days in peace and replenish the earth.

I think that the director, Darren Aronofsky, did not do a very good job keeping to the original storyline presented in the Bible. In the Bible, god tells Noah to build an ark, and to fill it with two of every animal, and to bring his family, as they will repopulate the earth after the floods. Noah then builds the ark, the rain comes, the human race dies, Noah goes on to replenish the earth, and God establishes a covenant with Noah stating that he will never do such a terrible thing again, with the rainbow as a sign of his promise. Most of these events occur in the movie with the exception of God's covenant, but there are also many more aspects to this movie that don't occur in the Bible. For starters, Methuseluh didn?t appear anywhere is the Biblical account of Noah?s Ark, and neither did a war between the descendant of Cain and Seth. Also, Noah never tried to end the human race in the Bible. Lastly, in Noah there were stone giants that helped Noah build the ark, yet the Bible never says anything about helpful stone giants. I would have liked to see a storyline that follows the Bible more closely, but I can understand the need to add many more events in order to make it more attention grabbing. Overall, I would rate this movie a 3 out of 5 stars because it didn't stick to the Biblical version of Noah?s Ark. It was well made with an entertaining storyline, but it wasn't accurate, which really stopped me from enjoying the movie more.