baldeagle wrote:Purplehood wrote:I still plan on watching it as it looks like it will be entertaining. If it sucks, I will tell you. If not, I will tell you.
And I'm still waiting with bated breath for your review.
Easter Sunday and my girlfriend and I finally found the time to go watch Noah after having watched Transcendence the day before. Transcendence sucked. They forgot to put a climax in the movie.
***SPOILER ALERT --- If you plan on watching Noah, do not read any further***
Noah is not about the guy in the Bible and the animals two-by-two. I thought it was, but it is not.
Noah is about the ultimate Eco-Terrorist that has decided that the biggest blight on the Earth is humanity and that the "Creator" has instructed him to remove that blight. Note, I use the term Creator because that is the only reference to any sort of deity that appears in this movie. It is not my term.
Here is where I immediately realized one of two things... I have totally forgotten the contents of the Bible or there were simply pages that were missing from the version that I read that now appear in the movie. Correct me if I am wrong (and I am sure someone will, but here goes):
Angels went to Earth to assist mankind in order to give them dominion over the Earth. These Angels helped mankind reach an improbable Industrial Age that generally stripped the Earth of food, resources and any semblance of humanity.
The Creator became highly annoyed at what happened and caused the Angels to become large, misshapen rock-creatures and in essence, "Fallen Angels". For some bizarre reason these creatures took to calling themselves "The Watchers" and became highly annoyed at mankind for the Creator punishing them. So they ran off to a rock-creature no-mans land and started killing any humans that intruded on their isolation.
The Earth is really nasty and populated now. Think World War Z as the background. In fact you get the sense that humanity has probably resorted to cannibalism but you are never quite sure.
Noah tries to keep his little family totally isolated from the rest of humanity and hides out in the sticks (though there is almost no vegetation). I am not sure what they survived on. Noah has a lot of dreams/visions. His wife is absolutely convinced that whatever he says is pretty-much okay and supports him on every decision that he makes.
Noah takes his family on a walk-about to get away from the encroachments of mankind. On the way he encounters the Watchers, who pretty-much want to kill him for being human. He throws-out the name of Methusaleh as his Grandpa and this makes one of the Watchers slow-down and think that maybe this particular human is different and might be okay. The other Watchers don't buy into it and throw the Noah-clan into an industrial/quarry type of thingie with no way out.
The Watcher that thinks they may be okay smuggles them out and sets off for Methusalehs mountain. Once they get to the mountain, Grandpa gives him a hallucinogenic in order to help him have another vision so that Noah can decide what task the Creator has come up with next for him.
***SPOILER ALERT --- This is a critical moment in the movie***
Noah needs to build an Ark and put all of the animals on it.
***SPOILER ALERT OVER***
The Noah family wakes up to find a whole lot of annoyed Watchers dragging off the "nice" Watcher for helping the nasty-awful humans. They do not want to hear any of Noah's explanations for what he wants to do to fix things for the Creator (remember, they are "fallen angels"). As they are wandering off dragging Noah's buddy, a geyser of water spouts out of the ground and goes off in five different directions in little tiny streams. Each stream immediately starts growing things along the banks, and within minutes (literally) Noah's camp at the base of Methusaleh's mountain is surrounded by the biggest forest you have ever seen (I thought it would be more convenient if the Creator had just provided him ready-cut planks).
The Watchers are suitably impressed and join Noah in his Ark-construction project as labor and guards. In fact, they are so effective as Ark-builders that if I had been in Noah's place I would have had a lawn-chair and porch constructed so that I could watch the Watchers do their thing.
During the period of Ark-building that local King of humans (and there are a LOT of humans) pays a visit to the construction site and claims it as his own. Since he has only brought the equivalent of an understrength-company of hooligans to back him up, the Watchers pretty-much run him off. He threatens dire retribution and promises to come back with many more friends to press his claim. This scene is way more complicated then I have recounted it and provides a little background on why Noah's second-son is dissatisfied and thinks that maybe humans are cool and okay.
Keep in mind that I am omitting events here and there that contribute to the overall story. Early on in the family-travels they pick up a young girl that had been left for dead. She has a nasty stomach-wound that she survives but has left her barren. She is adopted into the family. Her and the oldest son are quite fond of each other but she does not want to lead the boy on since she is quite aware that she cannot do her duty and provide him with heirs. She is also quite worried about the second brother that has no potential mate.
She wanders into the forest and finds Methusaleh looking for berries. He really likes berries as it is a recurring-theme of his throughout the movie. She tries to help him find berries and he decides that in the course of their conversation to tell her that he approves of her as an adopted Granddaughter and then he puts a blessing on her (he in effect "lays hands" on her) and cures her of her severe-case of being barren.
Brother number two (named Ham for those of you that do not follow the story) wanders off into the human city/slum and witnesses all sort of depravities. He ends up falling into a mass-grave and meeting a young woman/girl that he decides is "good" and will take home as a wife. While in the trench/grave, the rain begins. Ham realizes that it is obviously time to get back to the Ark and drags the confused girl along with him. As they run through the forest the girl steps into a particularly nasty bear-trap that the humans set. Ham cannot free-her, but sees that Dad is running to the rescue as the humans have decided en-masse to follow the kids to the Ark as they too have heard that the rains mean trouble. But Noah is not interested in helping to free the girl. He grabs Ham and takes off for the Ark while swarms of humans run about him (they don't recognize him and think that he is simply one of them), leaving the girl in the trap to get stomped on by the mob.
Meanwhile, back at the Ark, the Watchers have finished construction and set-up a defensive perimeter for just this occasion. The perimeter consists of themselves, chain links strung-between them, and a lot of solid-wood as clubs (the Watchers have what appear to be 5 or 6 limbs, it was hard to tell as they look like animated-rocks - think Transformers). The humans are stopped cold by the sight of this security force. Noah and Ham are given a brief-pass to run between the head-Watchers legs to relative safety in the Ark.
The battle begins. The Watchers are rather effective hand-to-hand combatants. The Humans are rather effective at swarm and overwhelm tactics. The King finally takes matter into his own hands with his hand-picked hooligans and uses his riot-gun (primitive, but that is what it was) to stun the head-Watcher, jump on it and start beating it silly. Eventually the swarm overwhelms the Watcher and kills it. As it dies, it explodes and releases a really-pretty golden spirit into the heavens that mutters something about being free, forgiven and on the way back to the Creator. This makes all of the other Watchers realize that dying is the best course of action for them and they go absolutely berserk in their efforts to kill vast quantities of humans and get their own ticket back to the Creator.
Meanwhile a number of things happen. The Ark is locked-down by Noah and his crew. Huge geysers of water start spouting out of the ground as the last Watcher dies. The badly wounded King (got hurt when the Watcher he killed exploded) sees a ramp up the side of the Ark and limps up it, cuts his way through the side with an axe and becomes a stow-away. The Ark launches while the rest of the world drowns.
Note: The animals are all asleep once they get on board the Ark. That way they do not make a mess, eat or argue.
Note: Somewhere along the way the adopted Daughter realizes that she is no longer barren and becomes pregnant by the eldest son.
The Ark takes a really long time sailing about. I was under the impression that the Ark went on a 40 day and 40 night cruise. But unless the human gestation-period had really shortened, the Ark must have been on its voyage for approximately nine months. Noah gives a speech in effect stating that as the last humans they have accomplished their mission of saving the Innocents (animals) and destroying the blight of mankind (which will include them letting themselves die and each one burying the one who dies before them). This conversation leads to the daughter advising that she is pregnant. Noah does not like this. He plainly states that if it is a boy, it will grow up to bury whoever is last to die before it. If it is a girl, it must be killed at birth so that it does not become a Mother. This leads to a lot of hate and discontent, especially with Noah's wife who has followed him without question until now.
Meanwhile, Ham (brother two) has discovered the stowed-away and injured King of the Humans. Ham is a sucker for psychological warfare and nurses the King back to health and promises to help get revenge on Noah for "taking" the sons rightful woman away.
Note: Son number One and Daughter build their own raft for leaving the Ark and looking for someplace to sail-off and hide so that the child will live. Noah knows all along and at the last second throws what appears to be an itsy-busy grenade of some sort that burns the raft to a crisp. A really-really pregnant Daughter immediately breaks her water and goes into labor. Son One goes into defensive mode and readies to protect the child from Noah should it be a girl.
The confusing climactic scene of the movie begins:
Daughter gives birth to twin-girls (enough for sons two and three to eventually have wives).
The King attacks Noah after Ham leads him into a trap.
Son One attacks Noah in a preemptive strike to prevent an attack on the girls.
Bottom line: Ham kills the King at the last possible moment before Noah can be killed.
Noah goes looking for the girls, finds them and their Mom, listens to Mom sing a song and decides that he cannot kill the kids.
The Creator makes a happy-sky, so everyone know that this is "okay". Noah is not happy as he feels that he has failed the mission.
My review:
As I stood up at the end of the movie (noticing a notable lack of applause by anyone), I proclaimed to my girlfriend, "I don't see how that movie had anything to do with the Bible". The folks in the row behind me laughed and agreed.
This was a really long, fairly interesting Sci-Fi story about a fanatical Eco-Terrorist that like most Progressives believes that Humanity must either vote Democrat or die. In his mind "die" being the only acceptable alternative.
