Review of Noah (2013) by Smitty S — 23 Dec 2014

Finally sat down and watched this to see what all the fuss was about. I have to say, I was expecting much worse. Honestly, if you pulled out the Nephilim scenes and shots, the movie, as a movie, was not as far fetched as I was led to believe. Is there Hollywood licence? Absolutely. Did they portray God as uncaring, cruel, and very "human" in His treatment of creation? Yes. But there were lots of things that got me thinking about the story and about how I've always just seen the ark encounter in my head. Things like, if you were noah, how mentally taxing it would be to see and hear hundreds of people clamoring and screaming for help and not being able to help them because it's too late. The only two things I blatantly did not like about Aronofsky's portrayal was his take on God, (how God left Noah guessing and almost killed his grandkids), and the overuse of the rock monsters. Cut out the rock monster scenes, you have a decent movie. Cut out the psychotic 10 minutes Noah has on the ark, and you almost have a story I can make a sermon about.

So three stars for being a good movie, even if not true to a literal interpretation of Noah, but I did not find it nearly as insulting as many of my friends on Facebook did, and thats fine, I do not fault anyone for that, it was a VERY misleading trailer. But having had time to hear other peoples opinions and what to look for, I took it as an opportunity to sit down and rationally think about my faith and a story I've always just taken at face value without thinking about it from more than a kid's Bible class perspective.