PDA

View Full Version : Noah (Darren Aronofsky)



TGM
03-28-2014, 08:08 PM
NOAH

Director: Darren Aronofsky

imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959490/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

http://entertainment.inquirer.net/files/2014/03/Noah_Intl.jpg

plain
03-29-2014, 12:18 PM
I found this to be quite the slog. Aronofsky's incredibly weird asides are welcome (fucking rock monsters?!), but this film is lacking any core fundamental sense of emotion and stakes. Could have done without Anthony Hopkins' endless search for berries as well. Also, how was Mickey Rourke not cast in Ray Winstone's role? Half joking on that, but still. Aronofsky's worst by a mile.

Ezee E
03-29-2014, 09:02 PM
Quite enjoyed this. When Aronofsky really gets to go belly up on what he does best, it really excels.

Also really liked how the movie had some deep moral and faith conflicts.

megladon8
03-29-2014, 11:27 PM
I just saw an ad for this on TV that said "if you liked Gladiator and Titanic, you'll LOVE this!"

WTF???

Ezee E
03-30-2014, 12:28 AM
By the way, I'm so glad that I avoided all things that could've spoiled this movie for me.

I had no idea about some of the "things" in this movie.

Spinal
03-30-2014, 02:08 AM
I just saw an ad for this on TV that said "if you liked Gladiator and Titanic, you'll LOVE this!"

WTF???

Russell Crowe + big boat

Skitch
03-30-2014, 03:17 AM
Fightin' 'round the world.

EyesWideOpen
03-30-2014, 02:36 PM
By the way, I'm so glad that I avoided all things that could've spoiled this movie for me.

I had no idea about some of the "things" in this movie.


IMDB has those "things" mentioned right on their home page without any sort of spoiler warning. Pretty lame IMDB.

Henry Gale
04-01-2014, 01:15 AM
Pretty unbelievable, and not just when it all feels incredible for simply existing as it does.

Nowhere near perfect (the first ten minutes left me very worrisome, particularly the almost patronizing text crawls, which is why I was happy to see it completely shake that sort of hollow pandering and spelled out directness afterwards), but it's still so insanely striking and absorbing, no matter how much it cost or adheres to whatever version of a source you may not have personal stake.

Got a lot to dwell on with this one.

Stay Puft
04-01-2014, 09:06 PM
Pretty torn.

After a lengthy post-movie discussion with a friend of mine (Aronofsky is pretty much his favorite filmmaker, and he thought it was terrible) I'm going to side with him a little bit and vote nay. I didn't hate it like he did but it does disappoint. My enthusiasm for The Wrestler was only ever mild, and I thought Black Swan was borderline tripe, but Noah goes full blown stupid. Perhaps Aronofsky is losing his touch, or perhaps a pattern is starting to emerge and I'm realizing I'm not really an Aronofsky fan after all.

There are some great sequences in the film. I loved the creation story, and similar sequences like the water spreading through the land and the doves flying to the ark. I particularly enjoyed one shot involving one of the Watchers returning to the Creator's kingdom: the camera follows him straight out into space, showing the entire planet being ravaged by storm; those are the kind of grandiose, cosmic-scale visuals I can get behind.

The beginning of the film shows a lot of promise, with lots of small details floating around the edges of the story suggesting a novel fantasy setting (spin this Bible story however you want, Aronofsky; industrial empires and fire swords and rock creatures, okay sure, I'm on board). The idea of Aronofsky in charge of a large budget for an action blockbuster seems cool, but while the film impresses with some choreographed carnage of a Watcher laying waste to Tubal-cain's army, it starts to disappoint in equal measure as I realize I'm looking at something out of Lord of the Rings or something similar (for all of the spinning camera establishing shots this thing could have been directed by Peter Jackson).

But disappointment really settles in during the latter half of the film, which is frankly a slog. The film gets bogged down in awful acting and awful dialogue. Connelly wails for an Oscar and Winstone literally chews some scenery. Characters stand or sit around explaining what's going on in the movie. The thematics of the thing are so one-dimensional, but maybe that's the point - perhaps Aronofsky wanted to emulate the Hollywood Biblical classics of old, grand stories of faith and struggle and good and evil, but then I also haven't watched something like Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments since I was a kid, so I dunno if they even compare. Also, the film introduces themes like confirmation bias and the multiplicity of signification (the rain stops, but each character interprets this "sign" differently) but I'm not really sure what Aronofsky wants to say. If anything? The dialogue is so on-the-nose and the whole thing resolves with, hey, He works in mysterious ways. The movie ends with Hermione telling Noah that the Creator gave him that choice, and he chose love, and gave us a second chance, and maybe this time we'll learn to do better, and then Noah blesses his granddaughters and the Creator smiles and makes rainbows. I mean, holy fuck.

I'm not really sure what to do with this movie. It's well made, some of the visuals are neat, Mansell's score is good (although I still prefer the score for The Fountain), it's engaging up to a point... but the whole thing seems pretty daft in retrospect. Someone give Hopkins some berries.

Watashi
04-02-2014, 01:25 AM
Like Pufty, I'm not an Aronofsky fan (I only really love The Fountain), and I was expecting this to be a return-to-form to that type of ethereal filmmaking. For some parts, it was, but it's a real slog to get anywhere near the grand scale the film promises. I wish it was more cosmic and fantastical. The Watchers are cool, but then they also look and act cartoony. Russell Crowe is pretty excellent especially in the latter half of the film. I wish the other cast were better actors. Noah's oldest son looked like he walked out of a magazine shoot with his perfect hair and teeth. Emma Watson was okay, and Connelly was pretty bad.

Eh...

number8
04-18-2014, 04:11 PM
I just wanted to post this.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/16cfd82952031f441b65ff699b304c 8a/tumblr_n48i77cOvz1rg365do1_128 0.jpg

megladon8
04-20-2014, 03:51 AM
Noah's hands are a mess, and every face in that drawing is crooked...

EvilShoe
04-20-2014, 10:07 AM
Haha, Rob Liefeld. Of course.

Bosco B Thug
04-26-2014, 06:57 AM
People are being pretty hard on this one. I thought it a nice commingling of populist "oral history" for the intake of the culture today, with a not-quite-potent but still enticing defeatism, of true Old Testament sacrality. Crowe and Connolly pull off a convincing ascetic, pre-modern performance style, and the rest of the cast are smartly focused on only in strategic doses. Anyway, I was always planning on checking this out, but I was recently goaded by Adam Wingard speaking of this positively in the same breath as Boorman's Exorcist II. Not quite, but his comparison is charming.

Pop Trash
04-26-2014, 04:18 PM
Exorcist II is not only an awful movie, it's also a really boring awful movie, so that doesn't bode well for Noah.

Sven
04-27-2014, 02:02 AM
Exorcist II is not only an awful movie, it's also a really boring awful movie, so that doesn't bode well for Noah.

Haha. Nah.

Dead & Messed Up
06-22-2014, 07:39 AM
I liked this, but there was too much time spent with lunatic Noah. I get it, with Noah coming to grips with God's wrath by trying to embody it. But it distances his character a little too much. Showing more sense of an inner conflict would've gone a long way.

Dukefrukem
07-08-2014, 11:20 PM
This was good- the only real complaint I have is we the viewer have no sense of time. I wouldn't think that would be too difficult to portray.

Dukefrukem
07-08-2014, 11:20 PM
By the way, I'm so glad that I avoided all things that could've spoiled this movie for me.

I had no idea about some of the "things" in this movie.

So yes.

Irish
07-14-2014, 07:54 AM
Oh my God. Those fucking rock monsters. That shit was hilarious. Like some kind of Transformers: Prehistory.

This is bloated and overdone and ridiculous in parts. The CGI was terrible and the colors were garish and ugly. I was disappointed to see Aronofsky repeat visual motifs from both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan.

The first hour is a terrible bore. Everyone in the western world knows how this story plays, so I don't know why the movie burns over an hour on building the ark.

Later, the little family drama raised a lot of interesting questions. That was good. That sequence alone almost redeemed the entire film.

Favorite bit: Anthony Hopkins and those fucking berries. It wasn't until the end of the movie, when we see Noah stumbling around on the beach, that I realized ol' Methusaleh was just looking to get drunk.

I also found it hilarious that, for a story so heavily focused on bloodlines and family, nobody thinks to ask Grandpa on board the ark. I mean, fuck that cave dwelling hippie, right? Nobody blinks as they leave him to die alone. That shot of Hopkins getting hit by a wave made me burst out laughing.

@Dukefrukem - That is a good point. I shit you not, you can tell when a significant amount of time has passed by Russell Crowe's hair. With every new segment, the style changed significantly.

dreamdead
08-13-2014, 02:08 PM
First two-thirds of this one are interesting, and then it slogs its way into idiocy in the third act. There are a few bravura sequences, namely Crowe's voiceover of the "in the beginning..." story matched up with the rapid cut montage, and the initial sprays of water coming from the ground, but Aronofsky manufactures so much of the final tension, glossing over interesting tension from Biblical history (how do the rest of the family respond to this isolation on the ark?) for some risible Ray Winstone vengeance silliness.

There is an interesting angle about how Noah convinces himself that the wholesale destruction of this world is necessary, and some of the focus on the tormented screams and suffering that Noah hears is good. But a lot of Ham's narrative, the absconding of the other wives, and general crazy-Noah undercut some of the more interesting existential elements that could be explored. And the utter lack of caring about Hopkins character is odd--at least show one scene of Noah pleading for Hopkins to join him on the boat, even if Hopkins roundly dismisses it.

Woefully underdeveloped for a dream project--so much missed potential.

Grouchy
08-20-2014, 06:04 AM
A bit conflicted about this, but it ultimately falls on the positive side. It's Aranofsky's worst film by a landslide, which is ironic given that it's supposed to be his dream project.

I echo the sentiment that there's not a single line of dialogue that addresses the fact that grandpa is carelessly left to drown. And I would've liked to see even more fantasy/sci-fi elements added to the story. Rock monsters were great.

Wryan
08-23-2014, 05:23 AM
Finally caught this as well. It's not very good, with some acting in the latter half that made me feel like I was having labor pains. Crowe is pretty terrific though, and I was shocked at how much Marton Csokas really did look like Crowe's father. Nick Nolte was the head asshole rock monster, which is great. There were some fun parts--those opening 20 minutes are just hilarious, as you're left wondering if you wandered into a different movie. Not much else registered, although I think Crowe's hair was put under enormous, unfair strain. It shouldn't have to help carry a movie.

EDIT: Also, I was unaware that Methuselah was a wizard.

quido8_5
09-08-2014, 10:02 AM
Of course Darren Aronofsky would make this movie. It’s undeniably entertaining, it has some wonderful segments, but otherwise it’s not really worth the effort. He’s been trying too hard for quite some time and by making a movie that tries to please everyone, he ends up making a mess out of what is probably the simplest dystopian fable of all time.

The whole thing might’ve been tolerable if Jennifery Connelly’s performance wasn’t awful. Sadly, she is insufferably drawl, dark and dower throughout- it was tough knowing that she wasn’t going to die for the entire movie.

I will say, his faithfulness to the Biblical account was interesting. I have a few friends that are Creationists and I think they’d really like this. In fact, if he just omitted the mind-boggling addition of a wizardly Methuselah (that Wryan noted above) and cut-out all the drama about getting wives, it would be almost perfectly aligned to a very conservative interpretation of the story from Genesis.

**/****(M)