“Noah” –Starring Russell Crowe, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Anthony Hopkins

9 out of 10

By Jack McAuslan ’16

THE ROUNDUP

Noah was tasked with building an ark to save creation and everything that was good.

Everything wicked would be washed off of this Earth, cleansed by a great flood.

We already know this much about the Biblical story of Noah and the Ark.

There have not been many adaptations of the story, but “Noah” adds a fresh new story into the mix to keep people interested.

It certainly does a good job of that.

This movie begins by telling stories that most of us already know: Adam, Eve and the Serpent and the story of Cain and Abel.

It soon comes to Noah, played by Russell Crowe, and his family.

Noah, at this point, has had three children with his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly).

On their adventures they discover a young girl named Ila (Emma Watson) who has been badly wounded by raiders.

She grows up to be a part of Noah’s family and assists in saving creation.

One night Noah is given a vision, and from it he gathers that there will be a great flood and he must build an ark to save creation.

That’s the familiar part.

However, this movie isn’t that simple.

There are many twists and turns that keep it very interesting and entertaining throughout.

This really is an entirely separate story from Noah and the Ark from the Bible.

It is easy to tell that this movie’s goal was to be entertaining and not necessarily rehash what was written in The Old Testament.

In terms of acting, Crowe certainly does not disappoint.

He makes the movie a very dramatic one and I can not imagine someone else playing Noah.

Hopkins especially interested me because he did not have much time in the film compared to Crowe and Watson.

With the little time he had he made such a huge impact on my viewing experience.

It was difficult to keep track of who descended from whom and the names of every character because there were a lot of them.

Because this is based on a Biblical story I did not expect it to be very action packed.

I was sorely wrong.

This movie, honestly, has some of the most entertaining action scenes I have seen.

Swords that spit fire, rock golems that explode into angels and flood water spewing out of the Earth combine to make truly epic battle scenes.

This is a movie for everyone, no matter what faith, because despite the fact that this is a story from the Bible there were certain things from The Old Testament not mentioned.

Interestingly the terms “God” or “the Lord” are never actually used.

They only way anyone referred to their divine creator was actually “The Creator.”

When Noah tells the story of Genesis it shows the cosmos and Earth being created, and it also shows evolution.

“Noah” can be described as simply as this: A movie based on a Biblical story, adapted for anyone’s enjoyment. It is truly epic.