Okay, before I start this, let me explain that Noah is speculative fiction. I realize that it is based on Noah from Genesis, which is a story that I believe is true. However, it is clear that Noah is very far from its source material, and I don’t know what the vision of making this film could have started out as.

I’m sure someone thought Noah would be a good movie, but I’ve never seen a good version of it. There was an attempt at a TV mini-series with Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen in 1999, and it was absolutely terrible. It opened with Sodom and Gomorrah, which you should know takes place later in the book of Genesis. There was way too many liberties taken there, which is this film’s problem as well.

Now, the director of this film, Darren Aronofsky, who is a very competent man who gave us The Fountain, Pi, and others. Due to the questionable ambiguity of his films, he would not be my first choice of director of a biblical film. However, you have to try new things, right?

Now here is the thing about Noah. I went into it knowing that it wasn’t going to be an accurate, but rather artistic interpretation of the story from Genesis, especially with that director at the helm.

They story begins with the title character played by Russell Crowe and his wife, played by Jennifer Connelly. In case you aren’t aware, these two have played husband and wife before in A Beautiful Mind, a film that I will recommend as it is one of my favorites. Noah has three sons and he lives in a world that is overrun by tyranny as well as some weird stone giants.

Now I’m sure that most biblical and godly people will hate the stone giants in Noah, but there is references in the bible about the Sons of heaven, so this could be an interpretation. Their origins is very interesting, even if it is not quite in the Bible. So yes, I was willing to accept the spirit of this film if not the literal interpretation.

Before I get into what doesn’t work into this film, I want to say what I like about this film. First, the film went out of its way to show how depraved the world was before it was flooded. Most interpretations of Noah don’t emphasize that, and I’m sure that Noah must have had some sort of opposition when he constructed a giant boat in the middle of the desert. Granted, the film introduces Tubal-Cain into the story, which didn’t feel smart to me, but I’m willing to give it some leeway.

Second, there is a scene where Noah and the others can hear the cries of people outside of the ark as the doors close on humanity. It’s actually very terrifying and humbling.

Now let’s talk about where this movie just rides off the rails on this crazy train. There are several scenes where Noah realizes that humanity isn’t worth its salt, and he feels that burden being the last of humanity. Unfortunately, he goes really insane at some point, and it feels forced and completely unneeded drama. Then Tubal-cain shows up, and that crazy train goes into a train-wreck.

I have never seen a film that started out with an open-minded biblical interpretation, and then made me closed-minded to nothing but the biblical story. I suppose that Noah is a good thing because of that.