I went to see the new fantasy movie Noah today. It is, of course, based on a small section of the worldwide bestselling novel “The Bible” which you may have heard of, it’s been around for a while. Like many of you, I’ve read the book, although I’ve never been a huge fan. Most of the characters are unlikeable and there are long, boring sections of tedious backstory and description. It’s also rather preachy for my taste. I’m fine with morals and all that, but the authors spend WAY too much time ranting about what people should and shouldn’t do with their genitals.

But back to Noah. It opens up promisingly: people are not being very nice to each other. God, somewhat petulant about the fact that he gave people free will and they chose to exercise it, has decided to send a flood to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. Noah learns this in a dream and even though it’s really not clear in any way shape or form he decides that God’s will is for him to build an Ark to save “the innocents”. Meaning the animals. And his family.

He sets to work building an enormous ark, helped by the stone giants from the first Hobbit movie, remember those? Yeah, they’re in this movie too. We learn some backstory: they’re actually fallen angels who were super-hot and when they hit the ground metal melted to them and now they look like enormous stone giants. Seems a little weird, but hey: fantasy movie.

Still, as they build the ark there’s a bit of contention among the group. His son Shem is happily in love with Hermione Granger but she’s a bit angsty because she’s barren and can’t have kids. His son Ham spends most of the movie worrying about not having a girlfriend and how he’s going to get laid after the flood. This worries him, but during the 120 years it takes to build the Ark he doesn’t actually bother to go and try and find a girlfriend for reasons that are…well, he’s fucking stupid. Okay, that’s really a bit from the book, but in the movie, at least a year or two has passed, so…he’s fucking stupid.

Two by two the animals start coming and Noah and his wife put their plan into action: they have this smokey stuff that they burn and it knocks the animals right out and apparently puts them into hibernation so they’ll sleep for twelve months without needing food or water, which doesn’t really align with anything that we know about biology, but, you know. Fantasy.

As the day of many waters comes closer the tension increases with the appearance of Tubal-cain, king of the earth and all-around bad guy. He wants the ark, but Noah has stone giants on his side, so he leaves to set up camp across the forest to create weapons to fight the giants. After a bit, Noah goes to visit the camp, presumably to try and kidnap some women for his sons. It’s a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Noah watches passively as the soldiers bash peasants over the heads and rip young girls from the arms of their mothers and drag them away to eat them. Yes. To eat them.

Earlier in the scene we saw men chopping up meat and it’s at this point you realize, oh yeah, all that meat they were chopping up and eating 60 seconds ago? Those were little kids.

This movie is rated PG-13.

There were children under the age of six in my theatre.

So, heroically, Noah asks God for strength – no, strike that, actually he just heads back home and decides that it means that mankind isn’t meant to survive the flood and that he and his family will voluntarily go extinct, which is kind of an odd reaction from the one guy God asked to build an ark. Most of Team Noah more or less take this in stride except for Ham, who wants to get laid, dammit, so he splits out for the camp and eventually befriends a young girl who is hiding out in the corpse-pit presumably because she doesn’t want to be eaten.

Somewhat dramatically, it starts raining.

Tubal-cain and his soldiers gather their weapons to start the attack. Ham and his new girlfriend take off to try to get to the ark while Noah hunts for them. They end up caught between the armies of Tubal-cain and then her ankle is caught in a trap. Ham tries to pry it open but he’s not quite strong enough but it’s okay, Noah shows up, and Noah is played by Russell Crowe, and despite being kinda old he is ripped like sweet muscular Jesus, and the music is crashing, and you’re like yeah, it’ll take no time for them to free this innocent young girl and run back to the ark and now Ham has a wife and everyone wins! Instead, Noah grabs his son and drags him away and the innocent young girl screams in terror before the soldiers unceremoniously bash her brains in.

In this movie Noah’s actually kind’ve a dick.

So they get aboard the ark and the stone giants surround the ark and there’s a dramatic battle scene and many people die but you’re like, hey, these people aren’t very nice, they eat little girls! Noah agrees and is happy because they’ve saved “the innocents”. The flood waters start rising and people begin gruesomely dying by the truckload as the waves smash their bodies to pieces against sharp rocks and it’s that moment in the theatre where you start getting a little bit uncomfortable and saying, hang on, yeah, I can support the bad guys getting punished, but there are fucking KIDS out there, little kids, they haven’t ALL been eaten already, and aren’t babies the very definition of innocent? Why are they getting sent to Davy Jones’ locker? It’s a really uncomfortable sort of scene and you can’t help but visualize God leaning over the edge of the pearly gates shaking his fist at the scene screaming “DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS” and Jesus standing right behind him stroking his beard and saying “One of these days we should totally give forgiveness the ol’ college try.”

In this movie God’s actually kind’ve a dick.

Anyway, Hermione’s uterus was healed by Hannibal Lector – don’t ask – and she gets knocked up which puts a bit of a crimp in Noah’s plan for self-extinction so he decides that if it’s a boy it’s cool because they can still go extinct. He doesn’t mention how he’s going to keep Hermione from conceiving again but based on the rest of the movie I’m guessing Noah was planning on covertly knocking her down a flight of stairs. And, if it’s a girl, he’s going to cut the baby’s throat.

In this movie Noah’s actually kind’ve a dick.

So the last 30 minutes plays out like a psychological horror movie where the entire family tries desperately to convince Noah that infanticide is actually not the right call and Noah is unmoved and steadfast that he’s going to murder the shit out of his granddaughter because it’s God’s will and it’s actually kind of a really interesting parallel between people in modern days who do all sorts of horrible fucked up things to other people because they’re deluding into thinking they’re carrying out the will of God.

…well played, Aronofsky. Well played.

So there’s a birthing scene and it’s actually twin girls and the entire family tries to fight him but Noah kicks the shit out of them one by one and corners Hermione and there’s a horrible scene where Emma Watson totally fucking nails it because she’s a pretty good actress, and she convinces him to let her sooth the babies to sleep before he kills them so they won’t die crying and he agrees and she gets them to sleep and Noah raises his knife and then, after subjecting his daughter-in-law to one of the most horrifically psychologically traumatizing scenarios imaginable realizes he can’t do it and drops the knife, credits.

So yeah. I’ve left out a few subplots and there are some genuinely very good, moving parts to this film. It’s not a terrible film. But it’s kind of silly.