Director Darren Aronofsky, the man behind uncompromising films like "Requiem for a Dream" and "Black Swan," is back again with his latest offering, "Noah". The film invited the wrath of many religious people before its release on Friday, 28 March, but it has turned into a beautiful piece of art upon release with many critics describing it as a "must watch" modern parable.
Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Anthony Hopkins in the lead roles, "Noah", a 3-D and IMAX 3D film, is an adaptation of the Biblical story of Noah and his ark. Director Aronofsky has given his own interpretation of the story, which may not go down too well with many, but overall, it is a nice piece of art.
Here is what film critics have to say on "Noah":
"Grandiose, improbable, outlandish and overwrought, "Noah" is the kind of simultaneously preposterous and dead serious movie that has become Aronofsky's specialty. As much a fantasia inspired by the Old Testament as a literal retelling of that tale, "Noah" manages to blend the expected with the unexpected and does it with so much gusto and cinematic energy you won't want to divert your eyes from the screen," - wrote Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times.
Richard Corliss of Time described "Noah" as a "challenging, enthralling, very modern parable," where the director made certain changes to the characters you read in the Bible.
"Big-time directors and the studios that bankroll them prefer to dwell in the comfortable, familiar center, where mammon is God and the only divine word comes from focus groups. So for Aronofsky to construct an expensive spectacle, and to throw liturgical and dramatic challenges like lightning bolts at every member of the audience, is hardly less an achievement than to build and float an ark 300 cubits long (450 ft., or 137 m). Rarely has a film that flirts this solemnly with ambition bending toward madness been so masterly in carrying its spectators to its heights and through its depths. On both levels, Noah is a water thrill ride worth taking," wrote Corliss in his review of the film in Time.
Film critic Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post, is of the opinion that viewers may not agree to what they see in the film but is an astonishing one at the end of the day.
"Like interpreters through the millennia, Aronofsky has taken Noah's journey sincerely to heart, processed it through his own singular visual and moral imagination and come up with a narrative that feels deeply personal, broadly mythical and cannily commercial all at the same time. That feels just about right for "Noah," which ultimately invites viewers to form their own meanings, whether they're about sacrifice and obedience, stewardship and service or the enduring entertainment value of an epic adventure that, thousands of years on, still manages to astonish," wrote Hornaday.
While praising Aronofsky for the film, Katherine Monk of The Province is critical of "mud monsters" in the film.
"These cartoonish creatures are by far the most insane part of Aronofsky's crazy ride - and not just because the central rock man is voiced by Nick Nolte - but they fit the Dungeons and Dragons landscape, which, in turn, peels the Noah story away from sacred scripture, and reinvents it as a grim fairy tale," she wrote in her review of the film.
"If only he'd been able to pull it all together as something other than an awkward, rectangular box, Noah might have had some real style and actually gone somewhere interesting. As it is, Aronofksy's ark bobs around in an ocean of content for the duration, redeemed only by its mission of love," she added.
NOAH - Official Trailer - International English
