Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)

A hundred generations after the first men, humanity has spoilt the Earth and God decides to clean the slate by flooding it. Noah (Russel Crowe) receives a vision, which tells him to seek his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) and ensure the survival of all animals for the new world. With the help of giant stone angels, he and his family build an ark.

When they are almost done and the apocalypse is near, they are threatened by king Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), who wants the ark for himself.

Russell Crowe as Noah

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) is one of my favorite directors and he finally got the chance to make a Hollywood-scale film, but this is a two-edged sword. On one hand, Noah is a big production with expensive battle-scenes, visual effects and a huge set. On the other hand there are the director’s talent for characters and story. Everyone gets what he wants: the action-fans get their sfx and roaring sound, the studio gets their money and I get Noah’s inner conflict between God and family. Speaking of characters: the many high-class actors play them very believable and I feared for them. The film also contains two beautifully composed high-speed montages, which remind me of Aronofsky’s early work and which I like a lot. Altogether the film is pretty good. At some points it is a little melodramatic and I wouldn’t have needed the battle scenes, but the story gets very tense and interesting towards the end. The success of Noah should be enough to fund the next “real” Aronofsky-film.

TL;DR: The epic story of Noah’s Ark, told by the director of Requiem for a Dream.