Sunday, March 30, 2014

Let down by Noah


This is me running from the theater after seeing Noah!

There was a boat, animals, and lots of rain.  Beyond that don’t expect much resemblance between the film Noah and the biblical story.  I was super-hyped when I heard Noah was coming to the big screen, especially in light of the cast and the prospect of what special effects could make of this story, but boy was I disappointed!  I'm trying not to judge the movie just because it is so off base from the Bible and I feel like I am being honest when I say, "I just didn't like the story!"  The characters didn't capture me, the special effects were under-whelming, and the rock-creatures were disturbing.  I didn’t even like Noah.  That's how bad this movie is - you don’t even like the hero!  I didn't like anyone in the movie.  At least they could have thrown in a talking emu or something.

Certainly there was a truth or two told in the tale, but you can find the same truths in a good Disney movie AND leave humming a few tunes.  I can't even comment on the score.  There must have been one, but I don’t even remember being impressed with that!  This movie stunk as bad as the ark must have - but, wait, this ark didn’t stink because all the animals were in a drug induced coma during the flood.  But the movie still did!

And Methuselah - what's was up with that?  He lives in a cave.  By himself.   He's almost a millennium old and there's no one to take care of him. Shouldn't a guy that old have at least a few grandchildren with a conscience? The last we see of him he's rummaging for a berry.  He talks about berries more than anything.  All the man wants after 900 years of life is a good, juicy berry.  He finally finds one and at the same moment is bowled over by a wall of water.  It looked like something from a Saturday Night Live sketch.  Ridiculous!

There's one stretch of the movie that's a string of wild-life shots celebrating the animal kingdom, but that looks like someone invaded the archives of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and spliced in the scenes.  Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom - now that was a good show.   That Perkins guy would have made a better Noah.  Anyway, that footage is so out of place.  Like someone said, "Anyone got some good lion footage?  Let's put it in here.  Who cares if the filmography matches."  Maybe this is some film technique that I'm just ignorant of - could be!

I did kind of like the creation story Noah tells and the shot of planet earth engulfed by hurricanes.  Pretty cool but hardly enough to redeem this clunker of a movie.  It just didn't work for me.

I left feeling used.  I felt duped.  Like someone thought if you throw a biblical hero's name on a movie Christians like me would flock to the theaters like the animals flocked to the ark.  I did and I felt like jumping ship!

My only hope for this movie is people will watch it and say to themselves, "This can’t possibly be in the Bible," and then pick up one and read the story for themselves and perhaps read a little more.   I can hope, can't I?