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Saturday was rainy here so my husband and I headed out to the movies. Our decision-making process while choosing the film was, “Which one will be better on the big screen and which one will be fine on the tv?” Noah won and The Grand Budapest Hotel got saved on the Netflix queue.
Noah lost me from the beginning. It dragged on and on and on and bore very little resemblance to the Genesis story as I remember it from Sunday School. I think it started going way off track when Noah was killing people, even in self-defense, and finally derailed when I realized that the “fallen angels” that had appeared in the Garden of Eden were going to stick around and help Noah build the ark. They looked like big rock Transformers. Seriously?
Then Noah went all ultimate eco-warrior. They were all going to die. Not just the wicked world but him and his family too. His family would ride out the flood on the ark to make sure the animals made it through okay and then live out their days in solitude. No procreation allowed. He would do anything, including infanticide, to make sure that’s the way it went down. Talk about alienating the audience.
Add a sullen teenaged Ham to the ark and a murderous stowaway and you’ve got yourself a hot mess. The bit about a naked, drunken Noah got dragged in for no purpose I could see. One of the few things in the movie that I remember from the Bible and it was just a throwaway scene.
And then suddenly they all lived happily ever after.
My husband says he would give it 3.5 stars so we think my Baptist roots might be showing. But why mess with a story that’s already epic enough in its own right?
24 hours later but still prior to posting: I’ve thought about this some more and I’ve decided that my reader roots are showing! I’m pretty liberal with my personal beliefs but I get upset when the movie is different from the book. Don’t we all? So that’s what was bugging me. That and the stupid rock Transformers and the fact that it dragged on and on and on.
If any of you have seen it, I’d love to know what you think.
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3 Comments
Yes! I agree completely. When he was about to kill his first person, I was squirming. "We're not going here, surely," I thought. Oh, but we did. If a movie must be changed from its source material, and realistically they all have to be, it should still remain true to the feel. This felt nothing like a Biblical story.
+JMJ+
I'm not planning on watching Noah, but a lot of the blogs I read regularly have reviews of it, so here I am knowing a lot about it anyway. My favourite comment on it from was from someone who said the movie's biggest flaw is that you'd never know from watching it that Noah was supposed to be a foreshadowing of Christ.
I was enthusiastic about this movie when I heard about it, but after hearing details my interest has fizzled. I would have liked to see a fairly literal retelling, myself. Sounds like someone has an agenda, with the changes to the story. And what's with movies being super long these days? 🙂 Thanks for the review!