First of all, anyone who gives this movie a 1 has got some real issues. I almost changed movies when I saw the plethora of bad user reviews, but slowly began to read between the lines. The negative reviews have nothing to do with the movie, as in, bad acting, bad directing, bad special effects, no plot line. They all have to do with the story of Noah being told in a mythological sense rather than some bible thumping, and then God said Old Testament kind of way. Granted, the story comes from the Old Testament, but if you're not totally hung up on an absolute literal biblical presentation then the movie is absolutely fabulous. Russell Crowe is fantastic as Noah and gives a phenomenal performance. In fact, the acting by all the characters was a thing of beauty. Not enjoying the movie as a great job of story telling, which is what the director's job is, is losing the whole great story of Noah. I always loved the story of Noah, not because of the, "people have been sinning again, time for God to wipe everybody out theme". The metaphor I loved was that God entrusts a good man, Noah, with the stewardship of protecting life on this planet. God doesn't leave it up to Noah which animals to save, God's already made the world perfect in that regard, Noah is tasked to save a pair of everything. Period. And he does it, albeit with a huge load of, yes, science fiction like magic, straight from, guess who? The movie does have some slow periods, but it generally moves along very well. For the most part I thought it was very moving. Quite honestly I had a moment or two of the inspirational tears well up. The special effects are fantastic. My wife and teenage son all thoroughly enjoyed the movie. If you like fantastic stories with action, passion, struggle and enormous challenge, almost science fiction like or very Mythological in many ways, then I'm pretty sure you'll like this movie. It's Epic, an epic story and an epic movie. However, with all due respect, if you're seriously hung up on Christian dogma, you'd be better to stay home and read your bible.
Review of Noah
