Noah

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 1.0

"Recreation" of one of the most absurd fables in the Bible - about God flooding the world to purge the evils - has Noah (Russell Crowe) building an ark (really a giant floating coffin) - with the assistance of giant rock monsters (not found in the Bible) - filled with pairs of animals (along with him and his family) in order to repopulate the planet. This is easily one of the most kooky, sometimes laughable big-budget movies financed by Hollywood in a while, and though the special effects are excellent (the stop-motionesque sequences are delightful) it's difficult taking it even half seriously: Crowe's character is basically one-dimensional and sanctimonious (he only 'flips' when he bafflingly threatens to kill Emma Watson's babies ... though he eventually relents) while the 'bad people' of the world (embodied by Ray Winstone's character) are murderous cannibals incapable of being civilized (they eat kids!). This is some seriously expensive Bible-thumping.