movie review—Noah

What were they thinking!!!

Considering that a major theme for this year's movies seems to be loosely-Christian ideas, it's of some interest to see how those ideas are shown.

Listening to some of the radio ads for the movie “Noah”, it's admitted that “artistic license” was used. I really have to say that it was a pretty serious license, almost to the point of making the story unrecognizable.

True, many of the basics are there. There's Noah, his wife, and three sons. There's an ark, and the animals. There's a flood, with water coming from both the sky and from the ground. Outside of that, though, it gets over into the realm of fantasy, and even worse thing.

For example, there were the Watchers, some kind of angelic beings who had rebelled against God and had been sent to Earth, to live in some kind of rock shells. They resemble the ents from The Lord of the Ring movies, or maybe some of the Transformers from those movies. The Bible makes no mention at all of them, and the notion that they are “fallen angels” who somehow still end up helping Noah becomes problematic, too.

Then, there's Noah himself. For about 2/3 of the movie, he's not a bad sort. It isn't until about the time that the flood begins that we see the emergence of Noah the nihilist, who thinks God wants the human race to end with him and his children, even to the point of keeping his sons from finding wives to take with them, except for Shem who marries a woman who is thought to be unable to have children, and wanting to kill his newborn twin granddaughters, who were born on the ark.

This nihilistic Noah is completely contrary to anything the Bible says about Noah. Genesis 6:18 “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.” Genesis 7:7 tells us that Noah's son already had wives, and they went with them into the ark. And Hebrews 11:7 says that Noah built the ark for the purpose of saving his household.

Even outside of that, there is much in the movie that is questionable. In Genesis 6, God plainly tells Noah what's going to happen. In this movie, Noah gets some strange dreams that he must figure the meaning for himself, and one reason for his fall into nihilism is because he thinks these unclear messages mean that God wants his children to be the end of the human race.

Although little is shown of the cities the supposed children of Cain had built, there is the hint that industrialism was one reason for God's displeasure in man, along with the eating of meat. The message from the creation, that man is to have dominion over the earth and subdue it, is put into the mouth of the movie's main bad guy, almost as if saying that this message was not a part of God's original order, but rather something inserted later by man.

Overall, this movie is disappointing, and even distasteful. This movie makes the biblical account of Noah seem like fantasy, and it makes a man of faith look like a psychotic maniac. Sadly, I cannot recommend this movie.