Noah

**Spoiler Alert**

Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson

I'm not sure what drew Darren Aronofsky to the Old Testament but his career has been anything but predictable: from the cerebral Pi, to the grim and gritty Requiem for a Dream, and the dark melodrama of Black Swan, one is never sure where his imagination will take us. Noah isn't a film I would have ever expected Aronofsky to make but here it is in all its CGI glory.

I won't spend a lot of time with the plot; the story of Noah and his ark should be familiar enough though Aronofsky has taken artistic license with elements of the tale.

One such liberty is the addition of the Watchers; fallen angels from creation now stone-like behemoths who were once allied to Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. The Watcher's big, lumbering movements recall the Ents in Lord of the Rings. In fact, Noah seems more Peter Jackson than Darren Aronofsky in look and feel. The condemned masses, in marching on Noah and his ark bear a strange resemblance to the Orcs with their dark, faceless malevolence. Noah and his family's wardrobe also seem more Middle-earth than Old Testament.

Aronofsky's take on the story is very humanist: Noah and his family behave more like naturalists than biblical characters who practice animal sacrifice and slaughter. One could almost call them vegan in the high regard they show for animal-kind. Aronofsky's humanism is manifest in a series of evolutionary images that are wed with the biblical account of God making the heavens and earth--a very provocative act and my favorite part of the movie. Shots of the earth from a orbital perspective don't provide recognizable continents but one pangea-like super-continent--a sly and clever nod to geological history rather than biblical. It becomes abundantly clear Aronofsky wants Noah to be John Audubon rather than just the creator's handmaiden. The religious right has all but disowned the film for not rigidly adhering to the biblical account. I guess they prefer the traditional depiction of Noah as a 500-year-old submissive geriatric without a thought in his head.

Aronofsky says his film is "the least biblical, biblical movie ever made," which is confirmed by every scene and story development. I was hoping Aronofsky's Noah might offer something that might really upset the religious right, like a dialogue between Noah and his Holy Bigness concerning why an omniscient, omnipotent being would and could create an imperfect species he claims to love then destroy it wantonly when it doesn't behave. Maybe that's material for a more daring movie yet to be made.

I found the film to be mildly entertaining but not on par with Aronofsky's best in spite of its few inspired moments. And though a rainbow plays a role in the story of Noah, the final shot of spectral colors filling the screen was more My Little Pony than Old Testament. Maybe the pony was on the ark? Maybe that's the sequel.