Noah movie review+new plot hole added

The Noah Movie Review

Noah (2014)

EDIT 3/31/14 Just added what I think is the movie's biggest plot hole that would drastically change the ending.

EDIT 4/2/14 Also added a part on golems in Judaism, which is probably what inspired the rock monster appearance of the Watchers.

EDIT 4/19/14 Noticed another plot hole about Tubal-Cain sneaking onto the ark.

Last year I reviewed three Jesus movies for Easter, The 1979 Jesus movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Passion of the Christ. Since 2014 is having several Bible related movies released early this year, I thought I‘d do another series of Easter reviews. And the first one shall be the Noah movie.

I first saw the trailer for the Noah movie several months ago, and it piqued my interest. How would the movie makers interpret the Noah story in order to make it feature length? Were they going to consult outside sources like such as Jewish traditions in the Talmud or apocryphal books of the Bible such as the Book of Enoch, similar to how Mel Gibson tapped into the writings of mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich to flesh out his Passion film? Or was the movie just going to make stuff up? I also wondered how the movie would handle the ending, since Noah's story in the Bible ends with him getting drunk and naked and then cursing the decedents of his son Ham, which would horrifyingly be used as a justification for slavery and racism in the United States centuries later. As I found out more and more about the making of the movie, it seemed that it was mostly going to be just making stuff up. *CORRECTION, 4/5/2014 That actually isn't entirely true. Much of the imagery and interpretations of Biblical figures in the movie were actually inspired from Jewish traditions, the Talmud, and the Kaballah. Aronofsky was raised Jewish, so the movie has a more Jewish perspective of Noah than a Christian one. I will link below to Peter T. Chattaway on the website Patheos where he discusses the film's Jewish imagery, and where you can also read his interviews with Aronofsky himself about the making of the film.* The director and co-writer of the film, Darren Aronofsky, had been fascinated with the figure of Noah since he was a teenager. His dream project was to do a Noah movie, but he had trouble getting it off the ground. He finally started to film around 2012, but there was much controversy over his interpretation of the Biblical story. Brian Godwa, author of his own Noah book Noah Primeval and screenwriter of the movie To End All Wars, read an early draft of the Noah movie's script and was surprised at the shoehorning of fringe environmentalist themes into the story. In the script Noah is portrayed as feeling that humankind should die out after protecting all the animals on the ark so that humans wouldn't mess up the world anymore, amongst many other changes which he found to be utterly bizarre such as an obscure Biblical figure named Tubal-Cain sneaking onto the ark and being the film's villain. As the movie neared its release, early test screenings of the film for Christian and Jewish audiences were lukewarm. Viewers were turned off at how Noah and his family were characterized and the changes made to the Biblical story. Creationist clowns like Ken Ham were also unhappy at the changes to the Noah story and how Aronofsky ignored "creation science" explanations for the ark such as taking "kinds" of animals rather than literally taking every animal. Paramount was so worried about controversy that they put out recut versions of the movies for test screenings, but Aronofsky protested and eventually persuaded them to release his cut theatrically. Commercials for the movie came with a disclaimer informing potential viewers that the movie takes liberties with the Noah story and isn't 100% biblical. Considering that some polls show that most people, including even Christians, don't actually read the Bible and mistakenly think that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife, the cynic in me has to wonder whether people would even notice the changes? Despite these attempts for the studio to avert controversy, the film has been banned in several Islamic countries (although this may have more to do with Islamic prohibitions against depicting prophets rather than the content of the movie). But when I went to the theater, I saw no picketers protesting the movie, so it looks like while the Noah movie may be stirring things up a lot on the web, in real life it probably won't get the amount of heat that the Last Temptation of Christ movie did when it was originally released back in 1988.

I have not seen any of Aronofsky's other movies, so I had no prejudgments of him going into the movie. And personally, changing things in the Noah story wasn't really going to bug me much as long as the movie told a good story. I thought the film adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ and the original novel (which I've finally read since I wrote my review of the movie last year) which both took a lot of liberties with Jesus' life story, were still interesting. Seeing how much turmoil and opposition Aronofsky had to overcome to make his dream project, this HAD to be something special. So how did it turn out? Read on to find out!

(as a side note, since I'm writing this review from memory, I apologize if I mix up the order of some scenes)

The movie opens with a text narrative and CGI imagery summarizing the first couple chapters of Genesis, and how after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, their murderous son Cain was forefather of an entire nation of people that were wicked and conquered the world, and it was all thanks to them being metal-working industrialists. Industrialists being present in Biblical times is probably stretching history quite a lot, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief. Before I saw the movie, I read that Cain's name in Hebrew means "smith" so I was willing to accept that the film makers are merely being symbolic by making Cain's decedents industrial blacksmiths. Meanwhile, the decedents of Adam and Eve's other son Seth were much more peaceful in comparison but by the time Noah is born, almost all of Seth's decedents have been killed by Cain's progeny. There is some weird imagery, such as the forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil (I shall abbreviate it ToKoG&E because I'm too lazy to type a name that long over and over) beating like a heart as Eve picks it off and close ups of a green snake that I presumed is the tempting serpent, but whatever. After seeing Jesus pull his heart out of his chest in Last Temptation and Mel Gibson's obsession with ugly anti-christ babies and a Jewish drag queen in The Passion, I'm kind of used to seeing weird imagery in Biblical movies.

We then see Noah as a child with his father Lamech, and Lamech is giving him a blessing while wearing a shed snake skin wrapped round his arm that has been passed down through their family, and it has glowing gold streaks. I'm guessing this snake skin is supposed to be a precursor to Jewish tefillin arm bands. He also has in his possession some golden stones. Lamech is about to complete his blessing and touch Noah with the glowing snake skin, but then our villain Tubal-Cain and his army interrupts the party and kill Lamech. Young Noah runs away with a couple of the golden stones in hand, and Tubal-Cain takes the snake skin relic and a couple golden stones leftover from Lamech's corpse. We see later on that the gold stones can be used to light fires, and throughout the movie Noah uses them to make fire places or light torches, so their purpose is clear (although their origin isn't really revealed). But what about that glowing snake skin relic? Will it play a role later on?

Flash forward years later and we see an adult Noah, played by Russel Crowe. Although Crowe played Jor-El in Man of Steel last year, I'm not going to make any Superman jokes in this review. His wife Naameh is played by Jennifer Connelly (for simplicity I'll just call her character "Mrs. Noah") and they have three kids, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah's family are a bunch of wandering vegetarian scavengers and are trying to flee Tubal-Cain's forces. One day one of Noah's kids is outside and picks a flower, but then Noah tells him not to. The environmentalist leanings of the movie are presented pretty early on, and throughout the film Noah pontificates a lot about how precious nature is and how nature's creatures must not be harmed. A raindrop then falls from the sky and a flower immediately blooms from it, and Noah interprets this miracle as a sign from the Creator. Strangely this movie never uses the word "God" and opts to call him just "the Creator." While this may seem like an odd choice for a Biblical movie, I didn't think it was too much out of the blue. The Last Temptation of Christ novel very rarely mentions Jesus' name prior to his baptism half way into the book despite being the main character, instead calling him names like "the carpenter" or "the son of Joseph," and I also used to watch a Jewish person on You Tube that preferred to call God "the Creator" rather than the name God. So I guess I’m used to this sort of thing, and if people get upset over it, then every Jesus movie in English ever might as well be considered blasphemous since the name “Jesus” sounds nothing at all like his actual  Hebrew name “Yeshua.”

Noah then goes to sleep and has a disturbing dream of being underwater while surrounded by tons of drowned corpses, and then wakes up in a panic. Mrs. Noah asks Noah what’s the matter and he explains that the Creator is giving him terrible visions of the world being destroyed because of the sins of man and they must see his grandfather Methuselah for help since they're the last of Seth's decedents. Noah's family starts to travel, and we then watch a montage of Noah traveling though deserted land. The film fades to black... and comes back to show them traveling some more. The film fades to black again... and comes back to show Noah and co STILL traveling. Ok, I get the point. They have to travel a far distance to find Noah's grandfather. You don't have to go all Star Trek the Motion Picture on us to establish this is a long journey. Fading out once is enough. Finally they pass by a weird dog creature with scales that is injured, and Noah warns his family to flee since it must mean Tubal-Cain's forces are nearby. Unlike Noah's family, Tubal-Cain's people are carnivores, and this dog thing was an animal they were hunting. Noah stays behind to care for the dog thing, but then he's surrounded by three of Tubal-Cains hunters and they get into a fight and Noah kills them. Wait a minute. Just a few moments ago Noah didn't like seeing one of his sons picking a flower, but he's totally ok killing people? Granted, it was in self defense, but if this movie is supposed to have a pro-environmentalist message, it's not a smart move to have your main character act like the popular image of a strawman environmentalist who values animal and plant life over the lives of humans.

As Noah and his family flees, they pass though a ruined camp destroyed by Tubal-Cain's forces and find a young girl named Ila who survived. Ila was stabbed in the lower part of her stomach, but before Noah's family can treat her, more of Tubal-Cain's men appear to chase them. Noah's family flees with Ila in hold, and are forced to cross into dangerous territory that belong to beings called "Watchers." What are these Watchers? We find out very quickly as some heaps of stone suddenly come to life and start chasing Noah and his family.

...

WHAT? Seriously? The Watchers are ugly rock monsters?! What the hell was Aronofsky thinking? Sorry but when I look at these rock creatures, I wasn't impressed by them. It just reminded me of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (one of the worst Star Trek movies, btw) and how one of William Shatner's unused ideas for the film was having rock monsters attack Kirk on the God planet. Did Aronofsky see the test footage of one of STV's rock monster costumes and think "Hmm, you know what, I'm going to out do Shatner and put CGI rock creatures in my own movie!" I'll link to footage of the unused STV rock monster costume below and you can judge for yourself whether it influenced Aronofsky at all. In all seriousness though, in Jewish folklore there are creatures called golems, which are beings made of stone or clay brought to life either by God or by magic. Golems appear in several Jewish traditions about rabbis who developed mystical powers and built themselves golems to do their bidding. The Watchers being rock monsters were probably based on golems, although I'll argue their appearance was inspired by the Star Trek V rock monster.

One of the Watchers knocks out Noah, and you would think that would kill him. But surprisingly Noah survives, and we briefly see the Watcher drag Noah across the ground face down. But then we see Noah and his family dropped into a pit and Noah's face just has a little dirt on it and is uninjured. How is it Noah has no injuries? It's like he was kryptonian... oops! I promised not to make any Superman jokes. Anyway, Noah's family and Ila have also been thrown into this pit and they finally treat Ila's injury. Mrs. Noah sadly worries that Ila's injury will render her infertile when she grows older. In order to help Ila relax from all the pain, Noah sings her a lullaby his father sang to him, and she instantly falls asleep. So does this mean Noah is actually a Jigglypuff in disguise? There are Watchers surrounding this pit, and the main Watcher speaking to Noah introduces himself as Og, making me wonder if the other Watchers also have silly sounding names like Gorignak, Thardus, and the Thing?  Og explains how he and the other Watchers used to be angels but were cast out of heaven for feeling sorry for Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden after they sinned. They hit the Earth like meteors, causing their spirits to become trapped in spider-like rock bodies, and protected Cain after he murdered Abel. Cain's decedents since then have enslaved and mistreated them (you have to wonder how ordinary humans could possibly enslave giant rock monsters), but they were freed by Methuselah when he used a sword that shoots waves of fire to kill tons of Tubal-Cain's warriors (insert He-man "I HAVE THE POWER" reference here). And they hope that by helping Noah, God will let them be redeemed. The Watchers are probably supposed to be the Nephilim in Genesis 6 while the name "Watcher" comes from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, although thankfully Aronofsky omits the part in Genesis 6 where it also describes these Nephilim mating with human women and producing offspring. The Watchers sneak Noah's family from the pit and out of Tubal-Cain's lands, and escort them to the mountain where Methuselah lives. And from now on I'm going to just call Methuselah "Noah's grandpa" because I'm lazy and that's easier to spell.

Anyway, Noah goes to meet his grandpa, who is living in a cave on top of a mountain, and he brings his son Shem with him. In the cave Noah lets his grandpa and Shem have some bonding time. Noah's grandpa asks Shem what his favorite thing is, and Shem answers berries. I'm not making that up. Fucking berries. Real imaginative there. And then Noah's grandpa quips he hasn't had any berries in a long time and requests that Shem brings some next time he visits. Noah's grandpa then touches Shem's forehead and puts him to sleep. What the heck? So Noah's grandpa has the power to put people to sleep too? Is this like a family superpower? And what was the point of bringing Shem if he was just going to go to sleep and not do anything else for the rest of this scene? Noah's grandpa then brews Noah a drink of some kind, and when Noah drinks it he has another dream of being underwater, but this time a golden shining boat is above him and drowning animals around him swim towards the boat. When Noah comes out of his trance, he realizes that the Creator isn't just going to destroy the world. He must build an ark to save all the animals and his family. Noah's grandpa gives him a seed leftover from the Garden of Eden, and when Noah comes down from the mountain to plant it, water cracks out of the ground and spreads all over the place, causing a forest to instantly grow around them. Wow! What kind of fertilizer did Noah plant with that seed? Noah and co and the Watchers then start using the trees to build the ark.

The movie then time skips into the future in a really weird way. That little water spring from the seed continues to stream out very far away out of the forest and into the wilderness. And we watch the stream extend and go... and go.. and go... the sky goes into fast time lapse mode to indicate many days and nights passing, and the stream just keeps going and going... for the Creator's sake, stop wasting the audience's time and get on with it! Finally the stream passes by a pair of white doves, and somehow they instinctively know they have to follow the stream back. We then cut back into the forest and see a grown up Shem and grown up Ila running around. Adult Ila is played by Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter movies, and adult Shem is played by somebody nobody will care about because look, the actress who played Hermione Granger is in this movie! Shem starts to act all romantically with Hermio- umm, Ila, and raises up her shirt and starts kissing her stomach for some weird reason, where a scar from her injury is still visible. So in this movie, it's Hermione who has the scar instead of Harry! Ila tells Shem to knock it off and reminds him that she's infertile. Wait... so during the time skip Ila and Shem got to know each other and have fallen in love? Why don't we get to see their relationship develop at all? This is a huge writing no-no. You don't have characters fall in love with no development, unless you INTEND to have them to act stupid (and given what happens later in the film, it probably was). This is especially egregious for me because a short while before I saw the Noah movie I finally got to see the Disney movie Frozen, and that movie deconstructs the whole idea of romantic relationships that develop with little build up. Heck, I'm sure if I search through the Bible long enough, I could find a story deconstructing rushed romance in there also!

We then see Mrs. Noah visit Noah's grandpa in his cave, and Noah's grandpa is lying down. For a moment I thought he was supposed to be dying, but nope! He was just resting. Anyway, Mrs. Noah tells grandpa how she's worried no fertile wives will be found for her sons in time, and she hopes maybe something could be done for Ila, and Noah's grandpa says he'll think of something. Outside, a gigantic swarm of birds arrives and enters the still-under-construction ark. Noah and Mrs. Noah then concoct an incense that causes drowsiness in animals, and then we see Noah's family walking through rows and rows of roosting birds spreading incense in little thuribles all over the place. So not only does this movie give an origin for Jewish tefillin, it also give the origin of using incense in religious services! Although you have to wonder why doesn't Noah just use his Jigglypuff singing to put them all to sleep? Soon tons of other animals such as reptiles, amphibians, and larger mammals then start coming in droves to the ark. But there's trouble afoot! Ham goes out into the forest, and then suddenly runs into Tubal-Cain! Tubal-Cain is played by Ray Winstone. You might be wondering why I waited so long to mention that, and it's because outside of killing Noah's father, Tubal-Cain isn't really present in the movie. He's really introduced here, about halfway into the movie. Tubal-Cain's people are running out of food, and have been following and hunting animals that were on their way to the ark. Tubal-Cain slays an animal that was passing by with an axe, offering to let Ham join his nation and taunts him by declaring that a boy doesn't become a man until he kills.  Ham is unsure, probably afraid that Tubal-Cain will kill him if he outright refuses. This then leads into a really bizarre sub plot that tries to make Ham seem like he's the rebellious son in the Noah clan. Tubal-Cain tosses his bloodily axe into Ham's hands for... some reason, and then takes Ham back to Noah and tries to convince Noah that Ham has already joined them and slew an animal. Ham calls bullshit on Tubal-Cain and tells Noah that the axe was handed to him. Umm, what exactly is going on here? This scene is just confusing and I'm unsure what exactly the point was here of Tubal-Cain doing this when Noah didn't believe him for a second. Tubal-Cain's army then arrives, and they threaten to storm the ark when it's finished. The Watchers all scare them off though and Tubal-Cain and his army leave and then start to forge new iron weapons to prepare for battle.

Let's stop and think this scene over for a moment, looking past the poor attempt at trying to make Ham seem like a traitor to his family. Tubal-Cain just made an open threat to Noah, and we've seen Noah has no problem killing in self defense despite all of his hippie pontificating throughout the movie. Why doesn't Noah just send the Watchers to kill Tubal-Cain and his army right now? Tubal-Cain wasn't expecting to find Noah and the Watchers here, so they're not armed to a tee at this moment. This looming problem could be solved really quickly, but the film requires the characters to act stupid at this moment so the story can continue, otherwise if the Watchers killed Tubal-Cain and all of his followers now, there would be no need for the flood. Can you say "idiot plot" along with me?

After the kershuffle with Tubal-Cain and his army, Noah starts wondering how his sons will be able to repopulate the Earth when Ila is infertile. There's then another confusing scene where we see Noah go out in the night into the camping grounds of Tubal-Cain's people looking for potential wives for his sons. It was confusing to me because at first I wasn't sure whether Noah is really visiting Tubal-Cain's camping grounds or this was yet another dream. As Noah walks around, no one is able to recognize him because he wears a jedi-like robe with a hood over his head. Wait a minute, how is Noah able to just wander right into Tubal-Cain's camping grounds? Were there no guards around? It shocks me that for a society that is supposed to be really violent and warlike, they have nobody standing guard around their camp to make sure intruders from other tribes stay out. Anyway, Tubal-Cain's people are utter savages, breaking out into fights, enslaving screaming women, cannibalizing each other, and is just an utter hellhole. This leads into yet another problem though. If Tubal-Cain's people are totally savage and destroying each other, how have they managed to survive and conquer the world at all? They would have self destructed long ago if there was this much in fighting amongst themselves. Didn't a certain famous guy in the Bible once say "a house divided against itself can not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?" Even the most evil and destructive regimes like Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia still had some infrastructure to keep people in line. If Tubal-Cain has no control over his people, then how could he hope to ever raise armies for war or nation-build? And what's stopping his people from overthrowing him and replacing him with a different ruler or just becoming a complete anarchy? The film makers were probably thinking that by showing Tubal-Cain's nation being full of violence that they would look really evil, dangerous, and scary, but for me it just defuses any potential threat Tubal-Cain could be. What's the point of sending a flood to destroy them when they're already doing a good job of destroying themselves? This scene could have been an opportunity to show Tubal-Cain actually ACTING despotic rather than just reminiscing about how his nation conquered the world in the opening narration. Like maybe Noah sneaks in and sees the nation falling apart and riots breaking out since everyone is on the verge of dying from starvation, but then Tubal-Cain comes in and stops it, and after mobilizing everyone gives a speech reminding everyone that Noah is the enemy and not themselves, or something like that. Tubal-Cain has barely been present in the movie and could have used some more development to really establish him as a threat, but the opportunity is just never seized. The scene ends with Noah just standing in the middle of a violent mob without anyone attacking him or accidentally getting hit by anything despite all the fighting going on around him, and people behind him suddenly start floating around burning in flames as if the world is suddenly entering hell. The utter weirdness of this scene made me think it had to be another prophetic dream of Noah seeing what would happen if Tubal-Cain's people aren't wiped out, but then suddenly we cut to see him coming out of the forest and returning to the ark at morning. What?! So this all actually was happening? I was left completely confused. Was I just not paying attention close enough to what was happening? Or is the editing in this movie just a fucking train-wreck?!

Geez, I'm sorry I dwelt on just that one scene too long, but it just really hurts the story. So let's move on and see if this downward spiral ends. So anyway, Noah has completely lost hope of finding viable wives for his sons and is afraid that God might let humanity die out after the flood. Ham is unhappy that humanity may seem to be doomed, and in defiance of his father's wish to just let humanity die out, he goes out to Tubal-Cain's camp to find a wife for himself. Meanwhile, Ila goes out into the forest and runs into Noah's grandpa picking at the grass, obsessively looking for berries. Wait, this berries thing wasn't just a throw away joke? Yep folks, Noah's grandpa searching for berries is now a minor comedic subplot. I imagine the film makers might have thought the atmosphere of the movie was feeling a bit too heavy and inserted this search for berries to lighten things up a bit, but it just comes off silly and awkward. Noah's grandpa asks Ila to help him search for berries and while she helps, she explains to him how she's infertile and that mankind might be doomed to extinction. Noah's grandpa takes pity, and then gives Ila a strange blessing that causes her vision to go out of whack makes her feel very strange. She then runs away feeling really energized, finds Shem and then suddenly starts passionately making out with him, kissing and hugging, and for a split second we see them start taking off their clothes and then fade to black.

WHAT.. THE... FUCK!?! Why are these two being intimate all of the sudden? I'm jumping ahead a bit, but obviously Noah's grandpa has miraculously made Ila fertile again and jumpstarted her libido so she can bear children later in the movie. This scene is just wrong on so many levels. The only real interaction we've seen Shem and Ila have is Shem giving her belly kisses and her resisting. Suddenly the movie is now asking us to accept that they're boinking each other now despite the audience barely knowing anything about their relationship!? Yes, I know, the future of humanity is at stake, but given Noah's feelings that mankind might have to die out, wouldn't it be a bit smarter to tell him FIRST that Ila is fertile and THEN have Noah check with the Creator to make sure whether it's his will that they procreate? At this point you can probably now predict what's obviously going to happen in act 3. You've already seen this type of plot and similar ones happen in other movies like James Cameron's Avatar (it wasn't disgraceful enough that Jake Sulley betrays the Na'vi kingdom to the evil army; he had to fuck the Na'vi princess too). The Creator forbid that movies ever have characters act smart sometimes.

So after an implied sex scene, Ham is going through Tubal-Cain's camp and somehow he also got through with no problem. He isn't even wearing a cloak to disguise himself like Noah, so either he's really foolhardy, or Tubal-Cain's tribe has the most lax security ever. He falls into a pit where corpses are thrown in, hearing a woman imprisoned down there screaming. He gets close to her and she's really hostile at first but after Ham gives the woman some berries to eat (hey! Those belong to Noah's grandpa!) she starts to trust him. Suddenly the rain starts falling, and the ark is finished being built and is ready for take off, once Noah finds his sons... wait, why isn't Noah doing frequent roll calls and making sure his family stays close to him, or asks a Watcher to escort his family members whenever they travel out into the forest? You've been preparing for a world wide catastrophe and you have hostile forces right nearby you, so why aren't you doing more to make sure your family is safe? Say it with me again folks, "IDIOT PLOT." So while this is all going on, in accordance with the rules of screenwriting, Tubal-Cain's army is prepared to invade the ark at the last possible moment when the flood is just about to start because that is when it would be most dramatic. He's not allowed to surprise attack them when the ark is half way done or something; no, it MUST be when the ark is about to leave and the difference between success and failure is at it's most dire. Shem and Ila return from the forest, but Noah realizes that Ham is missing and goes into the forest to find him. Ham is on his way towards the ark with the rescued prisoner following him, but then she gets her leg stuck in a bear trap and Ham is unable to free her. Noah arrives and tells Ham to just leave her, and Tubal-Cain's advancing forces then trample her to death. Ugh! That was nasty.

So back at the ark, Tubal-Cain's army is starting to close in, but the Watchers are all encircling the entrance to the ark with what looks like wire fences connecting their arms to blockade the army. The Watchers then shout "It's clobberin' time!" (ok, not really, but it would have been cool. Speaking of Marvel, the trailers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Amazing Spider-man 2 were shown before the movie and they were awesome!) And they start smashing up Tubal-Cain's army like there's no tomorrow... sigh, you know what? It's starting to become really painfully obvious to me that this movie really wants to be a biblical Lord of the Rings by trying to make the Noah story more epic and with more fighting, so from now on I'm calling Tubal-Cain's people orcs, since they're pretty much just an entire race of violent warmongers. And the Watchers are practically Ents that are made of stone rather than giant walking trees. The only thing missing is Noah screaming "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" to the orcs. So the stone ents just keep killing and killing more orcs, meanwhile the flailing of their arms causes the fence connecting them to loft up and down and shake, which you know, would kind of give some orcs openings to reach the ark! Noah and Ham come out of the forest and one stone ent notices them and pushes aside a bunch of orcs out of the way so they can pass through. Wait a minute. Noah and Ham were surrounded by orcs the whole time and none of them never noticed, "Hmm, there's a pair of unarmored people that we keep passing that are running around, let's kill them!" But no, the characters must act stupid yet again.

Tubal-Cain then reveals a "secret weapon" he was shown crafting earlier in the film, putting those gold stones into a hollow metal pipe to make a rudimentary gun cannon to shoot the stone ents with. Gee, the knowledge of how to make primitive guns would have been really useful later in the Bible. Imagine if David and Goliath was a gun slinging duel! But Tubal-Cain then decides to switch his weapon out for a metal spear and he and his army over take one stone ent and stab it in it's glowing golden heart, which for some reason destroys it's stone body and allows the angel formerly trapped inside to ascend back into Heaven. Wait a minute! Why is the Creator recalling his Watcher angels the moment Noah’s family needs their protection the most? The film makers must have a lot of balls (or are just plain incompetent) to write the Almighty as an idiot too. I should probably also mention as an aside that it might be strange to some viewers to see characters that are essentially fallen angels doing noble acts and being allowed back into Heaven when other popular works of Biblical fiction like Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost say that fallen angels have no redemption, but this isn't unusual to Jewish traditions in which ancient rabbis speculated whether or not fallen angels can be forgiven (this isn't a unanimous view though. I've seen a few Jewish websites that disagree and say angels are sinless and don't have free will like humans). So Tubal-Cain and a few of his orcs get past the barrier and try to storm the ark, but Noah kills the orcs. Tubal-Cain however, shockingly makes a smart decision for once and rather than trying to fight past Noah and risk getting killed, sneaks up all the construction on the side of the ark. His leg gets injured though, and he limps his way up and starts axing his way into the side of the ark, and coincidentally Ham just so happens to be on the other side and hears knocking noises from Tubal-Cain. The orcs kill all the remaining stone ents, although the last one voluntarily tears his own stone chest apart to release his spirit, making me wonder if they were ashamed of their stone bodies and could break it apart on their own this whole time, then why didn't they do that? Is there anyone in this movie that isn't stupid? Finally the ground starts splitting open releasing water everywhere, and the flood waters start coming in at such a rate that the remaining orcs are all drowned, while Tubal-Cain holds on for dear life onto the side of the ark somehow. We also see Noah's grandpa finally find a berry and happily eat it before being hit by flood water and drowning to death. Was this moment supposed to be funny? Or sad? Heartwarming? I can’t tell. And how lame is it that Noah’s grandpa’s presence in the film is concluded this way? He finally eats one berry and then just dies? You know what would have really helped? Lending Noah the FREAKING SWORD THAT SHOOTS WAVES OF FIRE THAT COULD HAVE KILLED TUBAL-CAIN AND HIS ORCS IN TWO SECONDS!

Anyway, Noah and co are in the ark, and Noah is haunted at hearing people outside scream as they drown. An exterior shot of the ark shows what I thought at first was a MOUNTAIN OF PEOPLE stacking up trying to get out of the flood water, but then looking at it more closely I realized it was just the tip top of a regular mountain poking out of the water with people taking refuge on it before they drowned. It's still a disturbing image though. Tubal-Cain finally breaks into the side of the ark, and once again we go into this really weird and underdeveloped sub plot that suggests that Ham is the rebellious son of Noah, except here it's done a little bit better than it was earlier in the movie. Ham is furious that Noah told him to leave the prisoner woman behind to die, and Tubal-Cain tells Ham that once his leg heals they can take revenge on Noah together. And then Tubal-Cain just sits on ass for the rest of the movie until the ending climax. That's no exaggeration. The MAIN VILLAIN DOES NOTHTING. Ok, he doesn't literally do nothing. He kills a few animals to eat while Ham hides him in the lower decks of the ark to heal, but he contributes nothing to the story during the third act until the tail end. I don't think eating raw animals is very healthy. What would Tubal-Cain do if he accidentally eats a sick animal? And what does he do with the corpses afterward? Sitting around a bunch of dead, rotting animals could also cause him to catch a disease, and stink up the place so badly that Noah and his family smell it and then discover where Tubal-Cain is. And he can't have Ham remove the dead animals for him either since Ham would get blood and entrails all over him, which would also raise suspician with Noah's family. I have to wonder why the movie even bothered to have Tubal-Cain as the villain if he's barely present in the movie? I suspect perhaps the writers were undecided whether or not to have a villain, and added Tubal-Cain to the script at the last minute. Considering all the drama that occurs in act 3 just amongst Noah's family, I don't think there really needed to be a central villain still hanging around.

So we see Noah and family all sitting on ass, doing nothing as well, just being miserable in the ark. And then Noah decides to cheer his family up by telling them a tale that his father told him, and the tale turns out to be the 6 day creation story and fall of humanity from the book of Genesis. So do you know what this means? THE MOVIE IS REPEATING EXPOSITION IT ALREADY TOLD US IN THE PROLOGUE BECAUSE THE FILM MAKERS THINK THE AUDIENCE IS FUCKING STUPID. Considering the fact that people like Ken Ham have built a creation museum and constant legal battles in the United States about creationism/intelligent design trying to sneak it self into science class rooms, I don't think the first couple chapters of Genesis have any trouble being publicized even to people who have never read the Bible. Hmm, maybe part of the reason why people make mistakes like thinking Joan of Arc was Noah's wife is because there's so much obsession with the first couple chapters of Genesis that people get bored and don't read further? I dunno. Enough side tracking. This telling of the 6 day creation does elaborate on the prologue a bit though, although it does so in annoyingly speedy montage mode again while Noah narrates. We see things like the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies and the Solar System, and life starting on Earth and eventually the evolution of apes to man, and while the CGI does look nice, it wizzes by so fast that you can't really take any of it in. Finally the movie slows down for just a moment and shows the green serpent from earlier shed it's skin and become the black, evil serpent of temptation. And then we see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden near the ToFKoG&E, and they look like glowing gold figures, making them look more like weird aliens rather than humans. And while Eve walks towards the tree, Adam stops and touches the shed snake skin and makes it glow gold. So wait, that relic which Noah's family kept all these years and that Tubal-Cain stole is actually the skin of the temptation serpent? Why would anyone want a relic like that? Did everything that Adam and Eve touch turn sparkling gold like they had the Midas touch? What about body hair that came off from Adam and Eve or finger and toe nails clippings? Would those be golden too? Why didn't anyone keep those also as back up relics in case the snake skin relic was lost or stolen? Argh, this movie is just making my head hurt... So anyway Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, and then we go into another rushed time lapse montage mode of  multiple humans in silhouette committing multiple murders through out history, blah blah blah, sin is everywhere. Noah's ultimate point is that he now believes all of mankind is wicked, even themselves, and that the purpose of them surviving the flood is so they can protect the precious innocent animals and then humanity will just die out after the flood is over. Wait, did I say Noah was cheering his family up? Sorry, I lied. He just makes everyone more depressed and of course none of Noah's extinctionist rambling goes over well with his family, and secretly this just entices Ham against his father even further. Fuck it. I promised I'd make no more Superman jokes, but from now on, I'm calling this portrayal of Noah "Bearded Idiot," the same nickname Linkara gave to future Superman in his scathing review of the comic "Superman at World's End." He’s annoyed me that much.

So anyway, Ila is feeling sick and Mrs. Noah treats her, and finally they figure out the twist the audience already figured out long ago, that Ila is pregnant. They finally decide to break the news to Bearded Idiot and ask him to bless Shem and Ila's relationship, but instead Bearded Idiot has another hissy fit about how they're going against the will of the Creator and they're just going to cause more misery for Earth, blah blah blah, more extinctionist rambling. Finally Bearded Idiot states his terrible resolve; if the child is male, he will let it live and the baby will just grow old die with the rest of them. But if the child is female, he'll kill it. Of course that wouldn't stop Shem and Ila from just having more children. Rather than murdering the baby, why doesn't Bearded Idiot just castrate himself and his sons? Problem solved. Humanity goes extinct. That in my opinion is probably the movie's BIGGEST plot hole since it would completely change the ending. But that won't happen because the movie is functioning under a massive idiot plot, remember? Mrs. Noah then has a massive break down at Bearded Idiot's horrifying promise, and begs him to punish her instead since she was the one who asked his grandpa to make Ila fertile again. It's a really heart wrenching moment and Connelly acts with all her might. But I just wish the rest of the writing in the movie was better.

So more time passes (thankfully we're spared another one of those silly time elapse montages) and we see Ila is nearing the end of her pregnancy, and Shem has started to build a raft to escape the ark with Ila. You have to wonder where the heck did he spare enough wood to build this thing? And how could he construct it without Bearded Idiot noticing that wood is disappearing in some places and that is son is vanishing a lot? But then Bearded Idiot arrives and uses one of his glowing rocks to set the raft on fire. Wow. What a dick. Bearded Idiot paid little to no attention to the safety of his family during the construction of the ark, but he will sure as hell see that no one leaves. Remember when I mentioned earlier that Tubal-Cain couldn't invade the ark until the most dramatic moment? Well, it happens again, as THIS moment of all time is when Ila starts to go into labor, complete with a dripping sound to indicate her water has broken. Eww. Mrs. Noah takes Ila in back to have her give birth. Ham is so terrified at the possibility that Bearded Idiot will kill the baby that he decides to finally act now and lure him into a trap to kill him. Ham lies to Bearded Idiot that the animals on the lower deck have woken up and started fighting, and Bearded Idiot goes down to investigate. So you're telling me nobody ever did inspections to make sure the animals were still sleeping? And if they did inspections, that would allow the to have found Tubal-Cain faster... wait, I keep forgetting that if the characters acted smart, then there would be no plot. Bearded Idiot sees dead animals all over the place, and that's when Tubal-Cain leaps out to attack. The two of them fight and fight and fight, and Tubal-Cain promises that after Bearded Idiot is killed he'll take Ila for his own and continue his bloodline through her. Ham meanwhile is just standing around holding a knife, unsure whether to help his father or not, but Tubal-Cain's comment that he will continue his lineage through Ila makes him start to have second thoughts about killing his father. Oh, and asides from having a dramatic birthing scene going on at the same time as the final fight scene, it just so happens that the ark also finally hits land at this moment! So much dramatic tension going on! Tubal-Cain just so happens to be on the side of the ark that gets hit by land and he seems to have been crushed under rubble, but then he gets out and tries to kill Bearded Idiot again, and finally Ham makes his decision and runs up and stabs Tubal-Cain to death, saving Bearded Idiot. Tubal-Cain's last words is that Ham has finally become a man, putting an end to this worthless villain. Bearded Idiot also notices the snake skin relic on Tubal-Cain and takes it back. Ila meanwhile has finished giving birth, and she actually has twin girls. Ila flees to the top of the ark to hide while Mrs. Noah lies to Bearded Idiot that they had a boy. But Bearded Idiot hears the cries of the babies on the roof of the ark and he goes up to slay them. Ila, standing there with the babies in hands, basically tells Bearded Idiot "Papa don't preach! I'm keeping my babies" but Bearded Idiot is adamant they must die. Ila then pleads to at least put the babies to peace first, and sings them the lullaby Bearded Idiot sang to her waaaaaay earlier in the movie, causing the babies to sleep. Wait, so she has the Jigglypuff power too? If Bearded Idiot and co have the superpower to put people to sleep by just singing lullabies, then why didn't they all just sing lullabies to put Tubal-Cain and his orcs all to sleep when they were trying to attack? Finally Bearded Idiot has a change of heart and lets the babies live, dumbstruck at why the Creator would desire humanity to continue on.

The movie drags on for a few more minutes. They leave the ark, and Bearded Idiot plants a vineyard and goes into a drunk depression in a cave on a beach. And now we come to one of the parts of the Noah story that worried me the most, a drunken naked Bearded Idiot and the cursing of Ham's descendents after he tried to cover him up. How does the movie handle this? By not handling it at all actually. Everyone BUT Ham puts a blanket around the drunken and naked Bearded Idiot, and Bearded Idiot just sends Ham away. Making Ham live away from the family is still a bit dickish, but at least this scene wasn’t much worse. Finally Bearded Idiot sobers up, rejoins his family and finally realizes why the Creator is letting humanity live. It's because of their sense of mercy. Except for that one prisoner girl who was trampled and for banishing Ham. But oh well. Consistency isn't this movie's strong point. He then blesses Ila and Shem's union, and blesses their daughters with his glowing snake skin relic. So that's all this snake skin relic does? It's just something you use for blessings? Then why did Tubal-Cain want it? We never saw him blessing any orc children with it. What a useless prop. But anyway, the Creator is so happy at the blessing ceremony that he makes a rainbow. But not just any ordinary rainbow. The Sun starts to emanate rainbow circles in the sky. So do you know what that means? It means God is a brony, and he just did multiple sonic rainbooms! And thus ends the film.

Wow. What an anti-climax of a film. All this controversy about the movie and THIS was the result?! Forget all the hub-bub about Biblical inaccuracies and environmentalism. This movie's biggest sin is that it's ham-fistedly written and joyless. I don't think this movie is bad overall; the first act of the film is all right, the special effects are good, and the acting is fine, but acts 2 and 3 of the film just fall apart being undermined by a weak villain who could have easily been cut out of the movie, a rushed, uncomfortable love and pregnancy sub plot, weird editing/pacing choices, and unnecessary conflicts that have really simple solutions. It desperately wants to be the Biblical Lord of the Rings but it falls flat. If maybe the movie had just one more draft of rewrites, it could have been a lot more solid. Oh well. I guess I can look forward to Honest Trailers, Cinema Sins, Red Letter Media, the Nostalgia Critic and other internet reviewers picking the movie apart in hilarious ways.

So which Bible related movie will I review next? Well, I didn't see Son of God listed as playing at my local theater, but I did see that a little film called "God's Not Dead" is being shown. From the looks of the trailer though, it seems like it might as well have been called "Chick Tract: The Movie." GULP. Umm, so stay tuned for a review of that maybe?