Noah (2014)

This is okay, with special effects and all, but we expected more, especially from director Darren Aronofsky (last blogged in Black Swan). We didn't expect a comedy from the guy, but weren't pulled in as we have been by his previous work. Here Noah (Russell Crowe, most recently in Man of Steel) is an unyielding father of a vegetarian family ("Father, why do they eat the animals?" "Because they think it makes them stronger.") who gets intractable in the second act (or is it the third? We saw it over a month ago). Jennifer Connelly (most recently in The Dilemma) is his mostly-patient wife Naameh, Douglas Booth (new to me) is older son Shem, Logan Lerman (last in The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is younger son Ham, and Emma Watson (after co-starring with Lerman in Wallflower she was in The Bling Ring) is adopted daughter Ila--the latter three are portrayed by cute kids at the beginning, and the older ones are quite attractive as well. Ila/Watson cries a lot. Ray Winstone, who played bad guys in Sexy Beast (2000) and The Departed (2006), among many credits, is a meat-eating (natch) bad guy trying to get on the ark.

My favorite sequence is the story of Genesis in 3 minutes and 33 seconds, especially the part showing evolution from fish to lizards to furry creatures to primates. It's on youtube!

Clint Mansell once again scores for his regular collaborator Aronofsky, as he did for Black Swan. You can stream the entire soundtrack (if you have spotify) from this link.

Jack had read that a full-scale model of the ark was docked in New York City's harbor for a while, but unfortunately we missed it when we were in that city a few days before we saw the movie. Here's a video about the ark's construction.

We're not really with the rottentomatoes critics this time at 77%. More like their audiences at 46. So now that you can see the best part (I just pushed my chair back and watched the clip in a darkened room on full screen), go ahead and wait for netflix or free streaming and skip Watson's tears and the grimaces of Connelly and Crowe. Perhaps get the DVD of the light-hearted flood story Evan Almighty instead.