Review of Noah

Perhaps because of its religious territory, Darren Aronofsky's Noah sure is an upsetting movie for the purist. Much like an adaptation of a comic book or beloved novel, the director's vision is faithful in broad strokes, but he picks and chooses elements of his own devising to allow his cinematic vision to take on a life of its own. This is what directors and screenwriters should do when handed this kind of material, and while not every addition to the story of Noah in "Genesis" works as intended, the whole is nonetheless a fascinating "updating" of a timeless tale. There is much in Noah for the average viewer to admire and even enjoy, those two chief things being Aronofsky's spectacular visuals and a multi-dimensional portrayal of the lead character.

Noah begins with a brief recap of Adam and Eve's demise in the Garden of Eden, setting the stage for the corrupt and wicked world of where the main characters currently stand. Noah (Russell Crowe) has apocalyptic visions and seeks council from his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins). During the course of this meeting, Noah quickly deduces that since his visions involve water, not fire, "The Creator" (the term "God" is never used in this movie) is planning to wipe the world's slate clean with epic floods. He's convinced that he and his family must build a massive ark to survive and that only animals are allowed to survive the world's transition. Other than his immediate family (which also includes an adopted daughter), humanity is not intended to receive a second chance. Of course, not only must Noah deal with friction within his own family, but that of a rival clan headed by the king of the land, Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone).

Noah's most outlandish addition to an old tale involves giant rock creatures called The Watchers, who help Noah build the ark after initially distrusting him, then aid him in a LOTR-style battle against Tubel-Cain's army. No, I'm not making this up. One can be forgiven for wondering "what the hell is this shitty special effect?" when first laying eyes on these creatures, but the movie provides a decent enough explanation for them (originally light-beings, The Creator punished them for intervening in Man's affairs by transforming them into awkwardly-built rock-beings). You either accept it in the context of what Aronofsky is trying to do or you keep laughing. The creatures' presence grew on me over time, so I went with the former approach.

Other than these, however, no one will quibble about the film's visual style, which is often breathtaking. Every vista is gorgeously photographed, the sudden growth of a giant forest around a previous barren land is eye-popping, and the various CGI animals are seamlessly integrated. The film's single most awe-inspring moment comes when Noah relates a story to his family about the creation of life, and a stunning time lapse showcases various creatures coming into being over the course of hundreds of split-second shots. If there's a reason to see Noah in a theater, where the spectacle looms large, rather than waiting for home video, it's moments like these.

Even with the epic element, the film's other chief strength lies in Russell Crowe's portrayal of the title character. This is some of the best acting from Crowe we've seen in years; Noah is a hard-nosed, cynical warrior who loves his family but believes humanity is largely disgusting and has earned its comeuppance. The movie's most stirring conflict isn't that of clashing armies, but Noah's war of philosophy with his wife (Jennifer Connelly), his sons, and his adopted daughter Eila (Emma Watson). Even though Eila is of child-bearing age, she is sterile, and Noah firmly believes The Creator intends for humanity's reign to end with his family, not start over. Only the animals are allowed to repopulate. This allows Aronofsky, a confirmed atheist, to openly question Noah's faith and the supposed message. Noah was 100% correct about a flood coming to purge the Earth, but is he truly acting as a responsible messenger, or are his feelings just delusions of an addled mind? Noah pushes more than a few buttons in support of this theme.

Noah, at 138 minutes, contains a scope not fully revealed in the trailers. The movie has plenty of territory to cover after the rains start, and this segment of the film contains the most compelling human drama as well as a few unfortunate screenwriting lapses. Without going into too much detail, I can say that when the movie takes a turn which requires events to hurtle forward several months later, there's an elephant in the room that I can't believe no one stumbles upon until the plot requires the characters to. No, not a literal elephant in the room (in spite of so many animals, which are conveniently put to sleep via a primitive sleeping gas), but you'll see what I mean.  

Biblical epics were once all the rage in Hollywood, but perhaps because of the thorny, controversial subject matter, they're largely considered "niche" pictures with a limited audience in today's ultra-PC climate. Aronofsky is on record stating Noah isn't intended to be a Bliblical film in the truest sense of the term, and I welcome that. It uses the Genesis tale as a jumping-off point for a vision that, while far from flawless, is unique and fearless enough to hold most viewers' interest. You get out of Noah what you're willing to put into it.

Rating: *** (out of ****)

Review of 300: Rise of an Empire

Like many red-blooded males, I have a soft spot for the original 300. Its blend of blood-soaked battles, rah-rah speeches, larger-than-life characters, and lush cinematography holds up extremely well no matter how many times I watch it. But like any movie that generated a truckload of money and internet memes as far as the eye can see, the question of a sequel was not "if" but "when." Every element I've listed has made a return in 300: Rise of an Empire, some triumphantly and some with considerably less fire. And therein lies the problem. This has more the rhythms of a remake than a sequel, and while it's not a bad movie by any stretch, very little of it (with the exception of the main villain, more on her later) inspires and pumps up the viewer the way its predecessor did.

300: Rise of an Empire has a little fun with the timeline. A battle depicting Themistocles of Athens (Sullivan Stapleton) killing King Darrius of Persia takes place before the events of the first movie. This is done so that Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) can be provided with a brief and economical backstory showing his rise to "God King" status. Shifting forward to events running concurrently with 300, he sends his chief naval officer, Artemisia (Eva Green) to deal with Themistocles' band of resistance warriors while he takes on the 300 Spartans from the first film. Themistocles displays superior strategy and wins a few skirmishes, but as the attacks become more brutal and Queen Gorgo of Spara (Lena Headey) refuses to help, he soon discovers his fate may be similar to that of the Spartans.

Many of the best lines from 300 came from Gerard Butler's King Leonidas, and his absence leaves a gaping void requiring Herculean efforts to replace. They're not impossible shoes to fill, but Themistocles doesn't come close to getting the job done here. The character is provided with numerous opportunities to inspire the troops and defy the odds, but actor Sullivan Stapleton handles it perfunctorily rather than with pizzazz. He's boring. This is classic pulp material that demands a commanding screen presence and a larger-than-life approach. When 300: Rise of an Empire depicts battle, it comes close to the original's orgy of blood, dismemberment, slow-motion, and ballet-like combat, but the film is disappointingly dry when the armies aren't clashing.

If there's one area where 300: Rise of an Empire exceeds the first installment, it's in the chief villain. Eva Green is tremendous here, a true man-eater of a warrior who commands our respect in every scene. She relishes every line, no matter how ridiculous, and appears to be the only one among the cast who transcends this material. Even during a hilariously over-the-top sex scene, she's still the one in control. The screenwriters even give her a tragic backstory, but that doesn't do much good since it inevitably focuses a disproportionate amount of the film's energy on the villain, much like Joel Schumaker's two Batman films from the '90s did. During too many scenes, I kept wondering how much more invigorating this conflict would've been with a more charismatic hero. In fact, my dream version (albeit an unconventional one) of this movie would involve making Queen Gorgo the lead and having the awesome sight of two all-male armies led by women. Think about it.

With Zach Snyder focusing on grander projects, director Noam Murro fills the breach and does an adequate job. If there's such a thing as a 300 formula, he follows it to a T. But that's the problem. Big-budget, gorgeous-looking action films are becoming easier to finance, so there has to be some real passion involved for one to stand out from the pack. The R-rating is nice, but it's not enough. Give us some rush-worthy sequences and endlessly quotable lines. Do something unique with some of these characters instead of repeating the first film's structure. With the exception of Artemisia's scenes, 300: Rise of an Empire doesn't rise to the occasion. Given Hollywood's fetish for sequels and franchises, we'll probably see a third installment, but perhaps it's best to let sleeping Spartans lie.

Rating: **1/2 (out of ****)

Oscar Hangover 2014

Like I said last year at this time, live-tweeting and going batshit-crazy with social media during the Oscars is exhausting in the best possible way. Had I simply watched the show without any "distractions" whatsoever, I would've been bored out of my mind.

Unlike her previous hosting gig, Ellen wasn't so bad this time around. She kept her opening monologue brief, and as spontaneous interventions go, that pizza delivery gag was inspired. The late Gene Siskel had a unique litmus test for movies, one where he asks, "Is the movie better than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?" The fact that actors eating pizza was more entertaining than most of what the telecast had to offer is a perfect, and I mean deadly accurate, example of this. As for the other gimmicks, yeah the selfie broke Twitter. Hardy-har-har. Sorry, but maybe because I'm a man, I generally don't find selfies funny or memorable, just irritating. I'd like Seth MacFarlane back, even though it will never happen because he's too offensive, or something like that.

Positive points? The In Memoriam segment for sure, which nearly brought me to tears, and, surprisingly enough, the speeches! The documentary winners and the Best Song winners sang and rhymed their way through acceptance speeches, and that's enough to jolt any bored viewer out of an award-worthy slumber. Lupita Nyong'o's gratitude and emotion felt real and unvarnished, shades of Halle Berry's win for Monster's Ball more than a decade ago. And McConaughey's proclamation of "all right all right all right" tops even that of Kevin Hart. All in all, while the grocery-list-of-thank-yous Syndrome hasn't completely dissipated, we saw a lot less of it than in previous years, and I pray it's only a matter of time before it's out the door for good.

My complaints are the same as usual. I don't care that the show's tone is unabashedly self-congratulatory. Its been that way for decades and just goes with the territory. But why perform the songs (including Pharrell's obnoxiously childish act) at an award show that should be about movies? Why waste time with random montages (this time a look back at animated films)? Who cares about the Shorts? Why can't trained professionals read a damn teleprompter properly? Ultimately, a lot of these gripes, as fun as they are to type up and let out, won't amount to so much as a drop in the ocean if the ratings don't reflect them.

Then there's the sheer, mind-blowing predictability of this year's installment. The NBA Playoffs may have to hand over the crown as Kings of Predictability after what I saw last night. Google "Oscar betting odds" and you'll find that all of the favorites won. Seriously. Every single one of them. My total was indeed an improvement over last year (17/21, or an eyelash under 81%), but considering that many fellow prognosticators set personal bests (including the great James Berardinelli, who got a perfect score), my performance relative to the field was about the same as before. At least 12 Years a Slave, my favorite movie of the bunch, took home Best Picture. And American Hustle, my least favorite of the nominees, walked away empty-handed.

Maybe next year we'll see some surprises. And a shorter show. It's a strange conundrum that most of us who love movies are forced into. We watch the Oscar telecast because it's too big to ignore. Then we gripe about the same things every time out and they take forever to change. But maybe it doesn't need to. Maybe it's the ultimate audience-participation show, where you can watch with one eye on the screen and the other on Twitter/Facebook. When tweeting about celebrities, are we promoting them or are we really promoting ourselves and our opinions, casting our lines for Likes, Comments, Favorites, and Retweets? Hey, I do it too. Perhaps that's the appeal of award shows in general nowadays.