Noah 2014

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: Aronofsky dives headlong into this story of good vs. evil, not only between men, but within one man's soul. Read more

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: In some ways, Noah resembles one of those Kirk Cameron movies about the apocalypse, only with a better cast and more dazzling special effects. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Aronofsky and his cowriter, Ari Handel, have whipped up all this strife, and none of it works. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Holy ship! Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "Noah" can be silly or sublime, but it's never less than fascinating. I was on board from start to finish. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Darren Aronofsky's film about the Old Testament shipbuilder has been sparking controversy - but there's no denying that the Great Flood, digitized, is a pretty great flood. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: An often strange yet always intriguing depiction, filtered through contemporary ideas of environmentalism and presenting its title character as a man of unshakable faith and almost unendurable burdens. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Aronofsky brings wild ambition and thrilling artistry to one of the Old Testament's best-known, most dramatic, least plausible stories... with Russell Crowe infusing the role of God's first seaman and zookeeper with all his surly majesty. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: It is never less than fascinating - and sometimes dazzling - in its ambitions. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: At its best, the film gets by on its striking imagery, from a panorama of sickening human decadence to a mid-movie retelling of the creation story that might make Terrence Malick weep. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Many Christian (and Muslim) groups have denounced the film. My advice: See it first; then decide whether it's worthy. You're likely to find that it is. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Noah" is equal parts ridiculous and magnificent, a showman's folly and a madman's epic. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: For all the high-tech showmanship on display, this retelling of Noah and the Ark marks a serious effort to engage with the Old Testament as a literary text. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Aronofsky is interested in these people as people, not pop-up saints straight out of Sunday school. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It captures the torment of one chosen as an instrument by a vengeful Old Testament God, and it breaks a story of cosmic dimensions into brutally human terms. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: What it lacks is fresh insight from Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel. Yes, it appears Noah was an early environmentalist, but is that enough of a contemporary notion to sustain a two-plus-hour drenching? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: For the most part, it works. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Noah is a movie about big ideas (environmentalism, heavenly obedience versus earthly love) and even bigger directorial ambitions (how to tell a personal story on the grandest of grand scales). But, in the end, it's also a disappointment. Read more

James Rocchi, Film.com: W.H. Auden cautioned against those who "read the Bible for its prose," but after "Noah," perhaps the better warning is to look out for those people who read the Bible for its potentially profitable widescreen IMAX action scenes Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture's most primal stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: As much a fantasia inspired by the Old Testament as a literal retelling of that tale, "Noah" manages to blend the expected with the unexpected and does it with so much gusto and cinematic energy you won't want to divert your eyes from the screen. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters. Read more

Brook Wilensky-Lanford, The New Republic: It's a moving story. And the fact that [Aronofsky's] done his biblical homework makes it that much more so. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: That heady blend won't please everybody, but Noah is a daringly inventive, thoroughly entertaining and ultimately very serious movie. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: In a single sequence, Aronofsky combines creationism, Darwinian evolution, original sin, the end of days, and radical environmentalism. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: What Aronofsky does give this familiar tale is a great love of the Earth and a wonderfully complex Noah. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A biblical movie needs more than faith. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "Noah" is occasionally clumsy, ridiculous and unconvincing, but it is almost never dull, and very little of it has the careful, by-the-numbers quality that characterizes big-studio action-fantasy entertainment. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: The result is so brash it's sure to be called exciting or at least not boring. Those not in the director's camp may find it pummeling or numbing. He huffs and he puffs but fails to blow you away. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Darren Aronofsky's Noah is the Old Testament on acid. It's the movie equivalent of Christian death metal. It's an antediluvian Lord of the Rings, fist-pumping, ferocious, apocalyptic, and wet - very wet. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's overlong and a times sluggish. The fights and battles, designed to give an epic fantasy feel to the movie, are grave miscalculations. And the overabundance of CGI often makes Noah look like a video game. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: One of the most dazzling and unforgettable Biblical epics ever put on film. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Miraculously, Aronofsky has spent $130 million of Hollywood money on a visionary art film that asks us to examine what we believe. In this flawed, fiercely relevant film, wonders never cease. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: There's so much delusion and so much delight in "Noah" that I have trouble distinguishing one from the other, or determining whether its most outlandish flourishes qualify as mistakes or as strokes of genius. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Unlike most action movies, it's the furthest thing from a cynical piece of work. It's a movie to wrestle with and talk about. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Lightly bound to the traditional telling, Aronofsky gives the story massive battle scenes, intense family strife and a resonant message about the ecological costs of messing with earthly paradise. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Although Aronofsky constructs this vessel with a filmmaker's toolbox rather than a theologian's blueprint, a sturdy hull of human spirit enables it to navigate between both worlds. Read more

J. Hoberman, Tablet: The film oscillates between glitzy existential horror and somber showbiz spectacle. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Despite its flamboyant, and at times goofy, fantasy trappings, Noah is firmly anchored by the fierce moral intensity of Aronofsky's vision, which is, if anything, more Old Testament than the Old Testament itself. Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: Aronofsky and his co-writer Ari Handel struggle to create authentic drama and so fall back on action-movie cliches. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: If nothing else, Noah succeeds as pure spectacle, offering up nightmare sights and sounds of Old Testament reckoning that top anything previously brought to the screen (and that thankfully aren't presented in 3D). Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Clearly Aronofsky isn't out to make yet another stodgy Bible movie, but it often feels as though he's reining in his showier artistic impulses lest he offend the faithful. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Rock Transformers. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: A massively scaled undertaking, Noah is a bold re-telling with plenty of spectacle, undercut by its own sprawling ambitions, fantasy elements and formulaic villain. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: Aronofsky doesn't want to instill wonder; he's more interested in drab yet expensive-looking wrath. He's made a movie about judgment that itself feels judgmental. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It grounds the biblical apocalypse in the here and now, tapping into the dystopian mood while retaining a sense of religious awe. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Old Testament fury has rarely come to such spectacularly fearsome life than in Noah, Darren Aronofsky's audacious adaptation of one of the Bible's best-known but still enigmatic chapters. Read more