Starring:  Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth.

Rated: PG-13.  Action/Adventure/Drama.  Running Time: 2 hours 18 minutes.

 

I was raised Catholic, but I am not a practicing religious person.  I haven’t read The Bible much, but I did “experience a childhood on the planet Earth” (just heard that line spoken in the movie Kings of Summer and couldn’t wait to use it), so I know the story of Noah and his Ark as I’m sure you do.  What I didn’t realize was that he had Transformer-like rock creatures (fallen angels) help him and his family get the thing built.  Was that in The Bible version?  Noah (Crowe) is one intense dude and fairly shitty father in this dark and humorless interpretation of the story.  I understand this is serious subject matter, flooding, end of the world stuff, but man this movie really blows.  After watching the humans at work here, you don’t blame God in the slightest for wanting to wipe the slate clean.  The problem is, Noah is no better than the people he is keeping from getting on the Ark.  He treats everyone horrible, especially his family, who are the only decent folks around, and eventually tries to kill some of them too.  Beyond the inexplicable rock monsters, they also have some kind of magic smoke that conveniently puts all the animals to sleep (cmon, was that in The Bible story too?), so any possible chance of cute or funny interaction with them is eliminated as well.  Noah the movie, hasn’t one redeeming quality, it’s too long, dark and miserable.  Russell’s last effort on a boat is awesome, one of my “can’t pass it without watching it” favorites; Master and Commander the Far Side of the World.  Paul Bettany as the Doc, the one armed kid, the Jonah dude who kills himself.  Great stuff!  Watch that one if you’ve never seen it, and NEVER see Noah, it SUCKS!  

We just saw a clip of Gladiator as we were passing through the channels today.  I loved that movie immediately!  And many others from Crowe’s resume.  But recently, he hasn’t been involved in anything noteworthy.  I saw a horrible few minutes of The Man with Iron Fists and now this Noah flop?  What is Russell doing!?  I figured this might be worth a try since he was teaming up with Jennifer Connelly, his costar from A Beautiful Mind, but I was wrong.  Honestly, I can’t tell you much about the film because I was literally struggling to stay awake.  I started falling asleep periodically once the ark actually set sail.  I always liked the story of Noah and I think they had the potential to do this movie right, but somewhere along the line they lost focus of the story.  The movie dragged on, took some distasteful turns and continuously missed the mark.  I didn’t feel anything…except tired.

If the putridness of the movie itself isn’t enough to depress the shit out of you, then watching the brilliant Anthony Hopkins “playing out the string” of his career with another useless old geezer part (see Oden of the Thor films), should kick the last few handfuls of dirt onto your grave.  He deserves a much better send off, and I for one hope he finds at least one more role worthy of his talent before he sails off into the sunset.  Emma Watson mewls her way through here as Ila, a girl they found, lone survivor of some sort of massacre, who grows up and bangs Shem (Booth) Noah’s son.  This family would need a team of shrinks to graduate to dysfunctional.  This movie would need to be reshot to have any entertainment value.  It has made it’s way into my elite group of “worst movies of all time”, joining the likes of Tess, The Paperboy, Killer Joe, Melancholia and Caddyshack 2.  A Heaven’s Gate for the new millennium.

Hopkins must have one last role worthy of his acting capability. And I hope Crowe finds some kind of redeeming project. Maybe he should try an Indie. It worked out well for McConaughey. But Noah is not leaving a good taste in my mouth. What I did see was incredibly bad and what I didn’t…well, ZZZ. Instead of counting sheep, I may just replay some of the scenes from this movie. The Lord is cleansing the world in this film, but you may just want to cleanse your queue – and spare yourself the torture.

Ross’ Rating: 0 Gummy Bears out of 5.

Maria’s Rating: 1 Gummy.  (WOW RG…harsh, but accurate.)