Noah

I really expected Noah to be a better film than it really is. I really think Darren Aronofsky is a great visual artist, and Noah was supposed to be visual film. I had great expectations, since he was supposed to be in great form after the success of Black Swan. I loved his Requiem for a Dream and even the much-maligned The Fountain. But not Noah. Something was utterly wrong with the film, despite the fact that it had all the right ingredients. It’s like cooking a great dish and then forgetting to add salt.

Come to think of it, Noah had two major problems – the acting and the look.

If you look closely, there is no connection between the characters, as if each of the actors are acting in different versions of the film. And, they are all good actors, even if you reserve judgment for Russell Crowe. Here, he was just ill-suited. Even his dialogue delivery was stilted. But look at the other actors. There is Jennifer Connelly, who is usually great in whatever she does. Here, she doesn’t even look like the mother of three grown children. I usually like Emma Watson. But here, no. Her act as a pregnant woman is as terrible as a teenager doing the same in a high school play. Anthony Hopkins and Ray Winstone, both great actors, do their jobs well, especially Winstone. But he needed a different movie. Surprisingly, only Logan Lerman, the star of those Percy Jacksom movies, shows some acting skill and really makes you care about his conflicts.

As for the look, for some reason, everything looks cheap, even the massive ark. We know it’s all computer-generated, we know. But it should not look computer-generated, but it does. And, it’s never a good idea for a Biblical epic to make all its characters wear pants, literally, even the women. They all look haute chic, but it looks all wrong. Where a nomadic family living at the brink of a desert would find such clothes? And the animals look cheaply designed. Actually, Aronofsky does nothing with the animals. They arrive at the ark and Noah puts them into mass coma, suspended animation, problem solved. The design of the stone Watchers is lumbering, without any character. You cannot set one apart from another. And sadly, Aronofsky fails to do anything wonderful with the water; something like Ang Lee did in Life of Pi. And he had such potential.