Let me just start out by saying, it is a weird movie. While I don’t want to give anything away, it definitely had a Holy Bible meets Lord of the Rings feel to me. It’s not going to win the academy award this year for best picture, but is definitely worth a watch.

OK, let’s start with the obvious. As the director, Darren Aronofsky is a self-proclaimed atheist that specializes in darker films; this was never going to be the Disney/Sunday School version of Noah’s Ark. You are going to be deeply disappointed if that was your expectation. Every film he has been a part of has a dark, flawed character. Noah isn’t any different, and Russell Crowe does a very good job of portraying a deeply conflicted Noah. The rest of the actors were very good, although I wish the roles of the sons were played a bit more convincingly, but again it was well acted overall. The special effects were strong, including the Darwinian progression of life sequences (although I must admit that gave me a bit of a headache), and the music worked with the darker theme of the movie. And as Joe A. always says, they probably should have edited out 15 minutes to keep it rolling. It had all the makings of an above average summer movie, and as it pushed me to think about the characters on a much deeper level than more “normal” films, I liked it.

So, as I walked out of the restroom after the movie (Large movie theater Diet Coke stop), my wife was texting a friend the following text. “Noah was weird, weird, weird, weird, weird!” Interesting that the two of us had such differing feelings about the movie. And then over the course of the next 2 hours, my wife and I discussed Noah and then religion in general, more than we have in years. As there are a lot of controversial parts to the movie, there was a great deal to discuss. The next morning, I heard a conversation about Noah in the lunchroom, where people were saying how horrible and sacrilegious it was. “As a Christian, I am appalled that they let this trash into theaters, it doesn’t follow the Bible at all!” was a comment I heard as I was about to leave. I decided to stay. I responded to the comment, “Actually it does follow the Bible’s story and other writings of the time fairly closely, and as a Christian I would think you would be ecstatic that people who aren’t regular church goers are actually picking up a Bible to check out the story, I did.” I left to a silent room.

My final comment is this. Go see Noah. This movie needs to make money, if for no other reason than to have movie companies not give up altogether the making of interesting, adult, thought provoking movies. You might really like it, and I guarantee you will have something to talk about after seeing it.