5) Noah
As soon as Noah was released, many critics took to the streets extolling the brilliance of director Darren Aronofsky. How visionary! How strikingly original! How bravely willing to eschew tradition! I was left scratching my head – Noah didn’t excite me in terms of its storytelling, grip me with its visuals or blow me away with tremendous performances. It was a completely average venture so far as I was concerned. That’s not to say I hated it by any stretch of the imagination – Aronofsky is wise enough to keep the focus on that crazy flood, and none of the cast members embarass themselves – but it’s just nowhere near as good as it could have been.
Part of the problem is Aronofsky. He favors style over substance, creating some very striking images and visual effects (though the rock Transformers were overkill for me) without ever really trusting his story to be as stirring as it could have been. Noah should be all about life, death and rebirth, but with Aronofsky and Ari Handel’s script, it’s too often melodramatic. The supporting characters rarely interest and, when they do, Crowe’s Noah is quick to put them back in their place.
The word “interesting” comes to mind when I think of Noah, and I fully understand how lame that is to hear as a reader. But the truth is that Aronofsky hasn’t created a good movie with Noah – he’s crafted a surprisingly weak one with glimmers of brilliance, hints that it could have been so much more than it is. What’s really most interesting (and disappointing) about Noah is that a filmmaker as talented as Aronofsky has only managed to give us a movie that’s eye-catching at times, but never much more.
– Isaac Feldberg
Published: Jul 13, 2014 09:45 pm