Umm…like spoilers ahead and stuff so read with caution.  Like not spoilers about how the movie ends, because, duh, we all know the Bible, but more of spoilers about how STUPID the movie is.

The following are word for word utterances from inside the movie theater whilst my brother and I watched Noah.

Behold, the literal word of The Schleicher Brothers:

• About 3 minutes into the movie, I thus pondered, “What planet does this take place on?”
• About 60 minutes into the movie, my brother sayeth unto me, “Oh Noah he didn’t!”
• About 90 minutes into the movie, I spaketh, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?”
• About 110 minutes into the movie (upon the sight of the ark running into a rock), I cried to the heavenly ceiling fans, “Oh, gawd, it’s the Titanic now?!”

I have no idea who on earth would enjoy this movie.  Spare for the great music score from Clint Mansell and some trippy dream/vision sequences of the impending flood, there’s nothing in this movie worth applauding unless you enjoy watching Oscar winners delivering laughably bad performances where everyone is growling or whisper-screaming in misplaced accents and half of the dialogue is unintelligible.  I mean seriously, Jennifer Connelly (who I normally find to be a fine actress), why did you try to hold that stiff-upper-lip quasi-British accent while delivering your sniveling breakdown scenes (of which you have historically been the queen of doing well?)  Oh, and look, there’s Anthony Hopkins as a berry-obsessed Methuselah.  Isn’t he a funny old chap?

Darren Aronofsky (who quite honestly is one of the most over-rated auteurs of his generation – the only thing of his that totally worked was Black Swan and everything else has been an interesting mess to varying degrees) has crafted his first bona-fide piece of shit.  He approaches the ages old fable as a fantasy film…a really really bad fantasy film that makes no sense even in the context of the fantasy world it creates.  Umm, let’s see, there are…fallen angels turned into rock monsters…some kind of “electric” gold…jackals with armored feathers…magic smoke that makes animals sleep for months…and a flood that comes from the sky and water geysers from the ground – did I catch it all?  Seriously, what the hell was going on here?  And the wacky fantasy film approach could’ve worked (though I would’ve preferred a gritty faux-historical drama about an ancient Middle Eastern family and some animals surviving a flood…you know, those natural disasters that have happened many many times throughout history and could actually have been rendered realistically?) had Aronofsky not turned the character of Noah (oh yeah, played here by Russell Crowe, I almost forgot) into an emotionally see-sawing homicidal prick and thus alienating the large swath of the public that considers Noah both a historical and religious icon.

I get it, Mr. Aronofsky, the whole Noah myth is silly…but then why did you treat it so damned self-seriously?

But what really seals the deal is the god-awful ending.  You see, after Noah attempts to kill twin infant girls (begat from his eldest son and adopted daughter) because he thought “the creator” didn’t want the human race to continue…he comes to his senses thanks to a magical snake-skin (I’m not making this up) and then blesses the babies and tells them, “Be fruitful and multiply!”

Umm, excuse me, Mr. Noah, after you and your creator just killed everyone in the world but your family, with whom do you expect these girls to multiply with?

Your younger son, aka their uncle? 

You?

Oh, Noah, you genius!  Hooray for incest!

Meanwhile, Mr. Aronofsky….I pray this was some kind of sick joke and you go back to tortured ballerinas and washed-up wrestlers.

Written by David H. Schleicher