Noah 2014 Movie Review
Here’s my Noah 2014 movie review. To sum it up in a few words it was well made, interesting, and not so biblically accurate. At the opening weekend, Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 77% and the audience gave it a 70%. I pretty much agree with that score. I’d probably give it about a 6 of 10. It’s not a bad movie, just not accurate. What I like about it is that it will get people looking to the bible.
Walking into the movie, there was a big poster article of Noah outside the door. The poster said that the movie was banned by Muslims and some Christian groups. Its emphasis was to say that this movie is an artistic piece of entertainment, and making it accurate would have been boring.
I’m going to give the whole movie away here; plot, story, and all. Is this a spoiler alert? Hahaha, just go read Genesis 6-9.
The Rock Monsters
Yes, there are 20 foot tall mythological rock monsters in this movie. They will remind you of the ents from Lord of the Rings or Michael Bay’s Transformers. To explain it quickly, they are angels trapped in stone bodies. Why are they trapped in stone bodies? It’s because they wanted to help humanity without God’s permission, so by disobeying God in helping humans, they were cast down from heaven to the earth where their bright spirits hit the earth and rocks stuck to them. Light shines out of any hole on their bodies. Since they couldn’t leave planet earth, they sided with evil people, took over the world with them by helping them build cities, and then the evil people turned on them and started killing them. How do you kill a rock? By sticking swords in their light holes! From that time forward, they lived in rocky mountain places that were like death zones for people if they went to the rocks.
In Genesis, they are called the Sons of God (Gen 6:4), which are traditionally believed to be angels. In the bible, they came because they saw hot women and had giant babies with them. In the movie, the stone monsters are once called giants, but also called “watchers”. This was taken from the book of Enoch, a book found along side the dead sea scrolls. The book of Enoch is not from the bible, but 1Enoch 1:9 is quoted in Jude 1:14-15 of the bible and Jude 1:6 is notable as well.
Methuselah
Played by Anthony Hopkins, Methuselah is almost a magic man. When evil people turned on the rock people, Methuselah was the only one to stand up for them. He met a whole army by himself, threw down a fiery sword, and burned them all up. After that, he went to live in some cave off the side of a mountain. When Noah goes to see him, he gives Noah some drugged tea that makes him see a vision of the ark. He also tells Noah that his father Enoch told him the world would burn with fire, forshadowing the 2nd judgment. After Shem tells Methuselah that he likes berries, Methuselah wants berries from then on out. Before he gets killed by a flood, he goes out into the forest looking for berries. There, he blesses Shem’s wife, curing her barren state and making her fertile. Then, he finds a berry and gets hit by a tidal wave.
In the bible, Methuselah lived for 969 years; longer than anyone (Gen 5:27). He died the same year as the flood.
God
There’s not much to say about God in this movie. He’s called “the creator”. He doesn’t talk, He doesn’t show up, nothing. This is different than what happened in the bible. In the bible, God spoke directly to Noah (Gen 6:13). I realize that God uses visions and that this movie makes use of visions for entertainment value, but why not have God speak as well?
Noah
Noah, played by Russell Crowe, is an interesting character. He just wants to obey God, no matter if it isn’t in his own interest. As a boy, his father Lamech was murdered by Tubalcain of Genesis 4:22. Noah grew up as a vegetarian, which is probably correct, but God did say it was ok to eat meat after the flood (Gen 9:2-3). In the movie, Noah found a wounded girl who would later be Shem’s wife, played by Emma Watson, and raised her as his own daughter. After Methuselah gave him a seed that came from the Garden of Eden, Noah put it into the ground and a forest popped out. The rock monsters help Noah build the ark by ripping trees out of the newly sprouted forest. In the bible, Noah started building the ark when he was 500 years old and finished when he was 600. It took 100 years to build the ark. Not with that rock monster army it didn’t! It looked like 5-10 years, and then the ark was built!
A big inaccuracy that influences the end of the movie is that Noah’s 3 sons had no wives. In the bible, 8 people boarded the ark (Gen 7:13 and 1Pet 3:20). Actually, in the movie, Shem’s wife was barren due to a wound she received through an attack on her family when she was a girl. Right before Noah gets on the ark his character changes. He sees that all mankind, including himself and his family, is evil. He’s convinced that humanity should end. He sees that his wife for some reason can’t have more kids, and the only other woman on the ark is barren. Humanity must die off. After Methuselah touches Shem’s wife, she IMMEDIATELY runs to him to have sex and gets pregnant. When Noah find out she is pregnant on the ark, he prays to God about it, gets no answer, and concludes that he has to kill the baby if it’s a girl. This turns Noah into a potential horror movie psycho baby killer. The reason this doesn’t work for me is because even if Noah killed the baby, Shem and his wife could wait until long after they’re off the ark to have more children, which they did. She had twin girls, but Noah spared them. When he gets to land, he becomes a depressed drunk, depressed that he couldn’t obey what he thought God wanted him to do by killing the babies. In the end, Noah snaps out of it and blesses the babies. In the bible, the father traditionally blesses the sons, not the granddaughters (Gen 9:26). Multiple rainbows blow up in the air, confirming that Noah was right to bless the children.
Tubalcain & Ham
Ham is Noah’s son that just wants a wife. In the movie, he appears to be 16 years old, though in the bible he was at least 100 years old by this time and had a wife. He’s a naive kid who’s easily influenced by the main bad guy, Tubalcain. Tubalcain is the king of the world via Cain. He raises an army to take control over the ark since it’s on his land. Ham goes to Tubalcain’s camp to find a girl to bring onto the ark. Though he finds a girl, she gets killed. During the attack on the ark, rock monsters are killed while defending the ark. Apparently if the rock monsters are stabbed, they blow up and their spirits go back to God. Then they find out that if they just rip the rocks off of their selves, their spirits will go up to God. Tubalcain makes a hole in the side of the ark where he hides until the ark reaches land. During that time, Ham took care of him. When he tries to attack Noah, Ham kills him.
Other Weird Stuff
Other weird stuff happened in the film…
A snake skin from the original snake that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden was saved. Righteous people wrapped it around their hands while praying and giving blessings.
Speaking of which, the snake crawled on its belly even before it tempted Adam and Eve… But that’s not something that happened until God cursed it (Gen 3:14).
When Noah and his family got on the ark, he told the story of creation. Most of what is shown in the movie from that comes from pictures that science has painted. First, the big bang happened. Not many people will argue with that. Then, Noah talks about day 1, day 2, etc. The problem is that during that time, we are seeing many thousands of days flashing by in fast motion, suggesting that they weren’t really days. Next, when Noah said life was formed, a cell appears, turns into a fish, a mud skipper, a mammal, and a money. This suggests evolution.
However, when we see Adam and Eve, they are glowing with light, suggesting that they didn’t come from evolution. I like that they’re glowing with light before they sin. Moses’ face also shined when he talked with God (Ex 34:30), so it makes sense that Adam and Eve would both be shining too.
In the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit had a heartbeat.
When Shem’s wife got pregnant, Noah’s wife put some kind of magical glowing rock up to her mouth and somehow found out that she was pregnant. Those same rocks were used for starting fires and making bombs.
When Ham goes to see Noah, he finds him drunk and naked. Ham gives the snake skin to Noah that Tubalcain passed to him when Ham killed him, foreshadowing that he’s the new bad guy. The problem with this though is that Ham doesn’t have a son at this time and Noah doesn’t curse him. That was the whole reason why the land of Canaan was given to the Jews.
My question is this, “Who is the target audience for this movie?” Is it not people who have read the bible? It’s not even a large section of the bible, just about 4 short chapters. The movie was entertaining, and I’m pleased with it only because it makes people want to get into the bible to find the truth, but why intentionally make inaccuracies? It had some cool parts in it, I liked the visions, but the inaccuracies are funny and far out. Rock people, hahahahaha….
