Noah

Whether you are religious or not, the Bible is, no doubt, a pretty sweet platform for over-the-top cinema. With Noah, director Darren Aronofsky has concocted a totally crazy, darkly nasty disaster film befitting those few pages in the book of Genesis. In his best performance to date, Russell Crowe plays the title character, a good, passionate man in a not particularly good time. The people outside of Noah's family circle have turned Earth into a place of carnivorous debauchery. “The Creator” (this film's go-to name for God) intends to wipe all humanity off the face of the Earth with a great flood, and Noah is tasked with saving all of the innocent animals on a huge ship to be built by him, with the help of large rock monsters. The movie, as spectacle, is quite good, although its CGI has a few moments of weakness. The flood itself is a frightening sequence, with a horrifying moment involving screaming people outside of the ark getting washed off a big rock by waves. I'm actually surprised this movie pulled a PG-13 rating. It struck me, very much, as an R-rated film due to its violence.