I’m sure that we were all thrilled to see Hollywood finally start to adapt the events of the Bible. It was long overdo. We’ve had many films about the Civil War and other big events and these deserve just as much screentime. On the other hand, many Christians were pretty skeptical since the trailer did look pretty suspect. Unfortunately, they were right to be wary of this film since it’s example of how the theater can try to make the Bible “mainstream” and inaccurate.

As you may have guessed, this is a Very loose adaption of the classic tale. In the Bible, God decides to wipe out most of the human race by having a flood appear on the Earth to wipe everything out. He tells Noah to build an ark. 2 of every animal would go on it along with Noah and his family. The story was not very long in the Bible, but it was a very significant event in history. After all, it was where God said that he would never end the world by flood again. The film takes that plot and adds tons of stuff to it while “fleshing out” the characters to make sure that they are all pretty unlikable.

Now, adapting the Bible is a tricky matter in itself. I’ll definitely admit to that. Some of the events can be pretty brutal and it can be tough to see all of the animals being sacrificed on screen from the old testament. That being said, everything that is contained within the Bible is there for a reason so it must be kept in. It’s tough for me to watch as a big animal lover and the events can be pretty violent. Still, it must never be changed as it can trick new believers and they can miss out. So, I may still have a tough time watching a faithful adaption, but at least I would be watching it as it was meant to be seen. Dragging out the tale of Noah to 2 hours would be tricky for anyone and keeping it completely accurate would be challenging. That being said, the film didn’t need to be over 2 hours and the writers could have consulted with Christian scholars and pastors to get a better consensus of how the film should go. It would be more work, but it would be worth it. It would have also been worth their while to have made the film only run for about an hour or an hour and a half instead of adding tons of plot elements. Where did the film go wrong? Just about everywhere.

We have “The Watchers” who are fallen angels that disobeyed God because they wanted to help the humans while God had already decreed that the descendants of Cain would have to live by the sweat of their brow. God punished them by merging them with the soil of the Earth so that they became rock creatures. Then, the humans betrayed them and destroyed most of The Watchers. The Watchers became angry with humankind and they fled to a rocky area. Well….do you remember any of that from the Bible? I certainly don’t and I read that saga pretty recently. The whole concept of The Watchers is something that I don’t like. Personally, I have always pictured the Angels to be humanoid and made of light. (The Watchers transform back into this form when they die so at least their natural form was more in line with my thoughts) Of course, we won’t really know until we go to Heaven and their forms may not be so easily comprehended. Nontheless, I don’t believe that a human could ever destroy one of them, even if they were cursed to walk the Earth. Ever. That’s simply not possible and a complete insult to them.

It should also be noted that the word God is never used. They just refer to him as “The Creator.” The way that the universe is formed also makes it seem like it was a natural occurrence. God created the light and then everything just formed on its own….yeah right. The film likely didn’t want to offend atheists by mentioning God, but then why are they even making this film? This is supposed to enlighten more people to the word of God and to be a good way for Christians to see the story. If the writers won’t go all the way in making this a true adaption of the story of Noah, then there is no point.

Noah is also a pale shadow of himself. His big moment involves….disobeying God. He believes that God wanted him to murder two babies (You can already see how insane this is right?) so he does everything in his power to destroy them until he is finally next to them. Then he tells God that he will not do it and he leaves. One of the characters tries to tell him that God actually wanted him to spare the babies and he made the right choice, but it was handled poorly. Noah basically ended up choosing his family over God. He definitely misinterpreted God’s message as destroying the babies was not what he was meant to do, but it would have been better if God had told him to stop.

Another thing that I didn’t like was that God never actually spoke to Noah. Noah got brief visions about people drowning and other things, but God never actually talked to him. In the Bible, God told him exactly how to make the Ark, down to the specific size specifications. Again, the general audience may have found that hard to believe, but it’s what happened so that’s what should have happened in the film. We can’t alter the facts just to make things more “believable.” God never explains the visions either and Noah does everything by his own interpretation. In the Bible, everything was made clear to Noah. In the film, they act as if God barely cares about what is transgressing and the angels are the only real proof that he exists. (There are some minor scenes like a flower growing and the flood of course, but not talking at all is not a good move on the film’s part)

Back to Noah himself. He mostly just went around beating everyone up as he got the Ark ready. This just wasn’t the Noah that I was expecting. Self defense is good and all, but having him murder a bunch of people in one of the opening scenes isn’t how his character portrayal should have started. We’re supposed to see that he is a good man in a corrupt world, but we never really see this. He seems to be just another villain as he tries to murder the infants.

You can tell that my experience with the film was pretty negative. It’s just hard not to take a few shots at the film when everything was so wrong. Want to know another big problem with the film? One of the villains actually breaks into the Ark. That definitely did not happen in the Bible and it undermines everything. The whole point was that God protected Noah and his family once they were in the ark. They had nothing to fear because they knew that God would keep them safe. Not in this version and the villain actually murders a few of the animals. There is seriously no justice in this film.

The film has a ton of unnecessary animal violence and it’s very gritty throughout. We see many people dying and injured on the ground as they cannot leave. One of the worst scenes is when Noah walks into the enemy city and witnesses slave auctions and merciless animal violence. Don’t worry, I can possibly top that with another scene. Perhaps it can’t top that last one in terms of terribleness, but it comes close. Noah’s son helps a girl to escape this place and she trips on one of the bear traps. Noah’s son calls for Noah to come and help. So…Noah grabs him and runs away as we see the girl get trampled to death by the incoming mob. Noah regrets nothing since he believes that everyone in the village is evil with no exceptions. No exceptions. After all, he believes that his family are the chosen ones that God has deemed to live so any new life must be destroyed. Hence, why the baby must die.

I could likely go on for a while, but you get the jist of it and this technically isn’t a review. Just know that Noah is a really bad film interpretation of the story and I definitely would not recommend it. God’s Not Dead is a perfect Christian movie to watch that is fictional, but tells a good story. Son of God also came out recently and I can assure you that it is a pretty faithful movie about Jesus. Let’s hope that Exodus will be better as it will be hard to be worse…..but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high. Even if this was just movie that didn’t adapt the Bible, it would have still been a pretty poor one and you can bet that my score for it would have been extremely low. This is a story of brutality and of a man who lived through the great flood, but there is nothing about God’s kindness or anything to really show that he is alive at all. In the end, I’d say that the film….sunk.