As they say: Now for something completely different.
I'm a critical latecomer to the rising trend of Christiansploitation. You may have noticed recently that theaters have been flooded by films like Miracles from Heaven, Do You Believe?, and War Room. Even if you're not familiar with the content, the trailers usually make no secret that they are religious films. The trailers have proven to be so formulaic, and the movies so prominent, that SNL has gotten up to imitating them and has done so with excellent accuracy. There are a fucking lot of these movies, and the craze will probably go on for at least a few more years.
These movies aren't the first of their kind--arguably, Christiansploitation (exploitation movies that usually have a Christian propaganda bend) is a genre as old as any form of exploitation. There have always been films that have proselytized in some way or another, most of them pretty harmlessly. These movies aren't quite movies in that they're a string of cliche sequences that are meant to appeal to established Christians while also ostensibly trying to pull at the heartstrings of the nonbeliever. They typically don't succeed in that latter goal, but if you like weepy soap opera tropes, you can still enjoy them from an exo-Christian perspective.
Some of these movies, however, decide to go that extra mile. The Fred Phelps sort of extra mile. War Room in particular stands out as a movie that perverts faith in that particular exploitation-y way. I haven't watched that one, but I did decide recently to expose myself to the Theater Experience of one of these movies.
So. I saw God's Not Dead 2. If you've been following the Christiansploitation scene at all...well. I'll leave your reactions to yourself. (They probably just involve calling me an idiot, which I understand.)
I won't talk about God's Not Dead 2 at length, and not because I want you to see this for yourself. Don't watch this movie. If you do, don't pay for it. Read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia or check out a direct review of it if you're that curious. Suffice it to say that it is both dumb and offensive in its misunderstanding of the American court system and in its paranoid, baseless climax. By watching God's Not Dead 2 in theaters, I have proven myself to be supremely irresponsible. There are other things I could have done with my time. Instead, I have given both time and money to a production group that has shown possession of a hateful and ignorant ideology. No, of course I don't mean religion or Christianity in general. God's Not Dead 2 is not a Christian movie. It's a movie created by bigots who, despite possessing privilege, have the audacity to claim they are victims of oppression by groups who are comparatively underprivileged.
As far as the actual Theater Experience goes--the only other person who attended beat us to the theater. He was a 20-something grad student who sighed a lot and texted through the whole movie. When we left the theater he was staring at the ground with the look of a man who wants to hang himself. His Internet must've been down for the day or something and this was the only other thing he could think of doing. Probably because he didn't have any wet paint lying around to watch dry.
Anyway, I'm being pretty self-indulgent here. We're here instead to talk about one of the weirder Christiansploitation movies--which, incidentally, happens to be one of the less preachy ones. In fact, this movie doesn't preach at all, and perhaps comes the closest to being a true Bible film in that involves a lot of strangeness and deeply unsettling graphic violence.
Indeed, I can best describe this movie as one of the Old Testament movies that Ned Flanders was making in that one Simpsons episode. And that's honestly probably why I'm featuring it on this site. Noah is very much a trash film, or very much like one. It's an overlooked genre film that is not afraid to fuck with its audience in its imagery. It did get a theatrical release, true, but how many people actually saw this? Or heard of it? What's that? It starred Russell Crowe and Emma Watson, and heavily featured Anthony Hopkins? Pffft. Trash films feature high-quality actors all the time. Usually not in starring roles, and usually not while they're still considered to be good--I'm thinking of John Carradine's trash flicks here--but...anyway. Point is, I thought I could get a good review of this movie. As such, I should actually discuss the plot of this fucking thing.
Admittedly, you probably already know the story--at least, the basic details of it. The film does make its own elaborations, but that's primarily because the Bible isn't particularly great at character arcs/development. We see the creation of the universe, following the Genesis passages, complete with weird psychedelic images, artsy snake motifs, and...Adam and Eve having golden-glowing skin (?). The main focus, sin, is established via the Original Sin and the Cain and Abel story. Make no mistake, this is a somber world, a world that's paying for its mistakes. Noah's father is killed by the mysterious degenerate known as Tubal-Cain, who will become the main source of pain for Noah's family for the rest of the movie. As Noah grows up he begins to have visions of the coming Flood, and slowly becomes obsessed with fulfilling God's will, which of course involves building the ark and saving the innocent beasts. However, as time goes on, he goes even further when he begins to see the flaws in his family, and he believes that God only wants them to deliver the animals while humanity goes extinct. This leads to one of the most emotionally draining sequences in the story, comprising much of the movie's second hour, which depicts the family's increasingly torturous life aboard the ark. Of course, there's a happy ending, but much of the film is dark, and, indeed, hard to interpret at times.
The movie is a fantasy film, and that is why it is great. It doesn't try to make the Bible work in real life. The film apparently takes place in some sort of weird proto-caveman era, though everyone looks like a modern human (we see at some point that the Earth has a single continent at this point in history)--plus, Emma Watson is on record as saying that the movie may be set in a post-apocalyptic future. Several of the creatures that evidently didn't make it to the ark are shown, and they include what appear to be ARMADILLO DRAGONS. There are also fucking golems in it. Basically, the golems are these Biblical creatures called Nephilim. Biblical scholars don't agree on what the Nephilim were, but in this movie, they're fallen angels who had stone accrete around their bodies when they crashed on Earth. They speak with Optimus Prime voices and jerk around like Harryhausen creations. Then there's Methusaleh, who lives in a swamp cave and helps Noah by giving him spiked spirit-quest tea. He's basically Yoda, if Yoda was played by Anthony Hopkins. And again. This is a Bible movie. I haven't seen many of them, but I'm pretty positive that rock golems, armadillo dragons, and cave sorcerers never show up in Passion of the Christ. For shame, Mr. Gibson. The movie also contains evolution, which you probably will not also see in a Christiansploitation film. We see bacteria become fish, fish become reptiles, reptiles become weasels, and weasels become humans. This movie really is supposed to take place in real life. While also being completely divorced from any sort of reality.
That this movie is a fantasy movie made me initially wonder if the film was actually rewritten to cash in on the Christiansploitation craze. But apparently, director Aronofsky has always wanted to make this movie. The fantasy oddity of the movie comes from the fact that Aronofsky, of course, also made Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. If you don't feel like sitting down for two and a half hours, just envision a Noah's Ark movie as lensed through those two movies. You've got the characters tripping out, the relentlessly gloomy atmosphere, and of course, nightmarish levels of obsession. In regards to cash-ins, I do see some similarities to the Middle-earth movies, but I think that's due more to the influence those movies had on modern fantasy media.
The only fault that I'll give this movie is that another movie it shares elements with is 300. I don't like that Zack Snyder has left an impact on filmmaking--I hate literally everything he has done.* While fortunately Aronofsky doesn't mute the fuck out of his colors (in fact, the movie's colorfulness is one of the movie's prime highlights), he does have a lot of slow-mo. Slow-mo is dead. Or let it be dead. Please. I am probably just picking nits with that, but I hate being reminded of 300 in any form. Noah also happens to have the same grimness as 300, but the ending of Noah is uplifting rather than pointless. It moves in a positive direction but it is an Earn Your Happy Ending movie. Surprisingly, the ending does not involve Jesus. I like that. It enhances the thought that this is a Noah story, rather than the Noah story.
Okay. You got me. As I've been writing this I've been noticing that this movie was actually well received, and it did quite well at the box office. Today is the day, then, that the Mudman reviews a well-made mainstream movie. Whoops. But at least it's a weird one, and I will admit that I almost did a review for The Force Awakens. I had so many thoughts about that movie that I needed to get them out somewhere. But I slacked off on it and after a few weeks passed, I felt like I lost my window of relevance. As always, I want to share my love of the world through my writing, and so if I've encouraged you to have the experience of watching this movie and you enjoy it, this review has not failed. You deserve to be happy. Movies will make you happy.
Check out Noah if you want a look at religion as fantasy fiction. If you want to be offended, check out PureFlix Entertainment or Good Fight Ministries. Except don't. Religion should be about improving life, not making it worse, so if you're into religious films, see Noah instead of GND2.
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* I have a funny story about Zack Snyder that actually relates to Christiansploitation.
It came to light recently--and I will post my source on this if I can find it again--that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice topped at the box office because one of its main competitors on its opening weekend was God's Not Dead 2, which made a paltry $8 million dollars on said weekend. That weekend, when I went to the theater, I had only three choices: God's Not Dead, BvS, and Miracles from Heaven. We didn't even get Zootopia or My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which is probably why at least the former didn't beat out BvS. BvS apparently did so well because it was only slightly less offensive than GND. In an alternate universe, Star Wars came out the same weekend as Dawn of Justice, and the DC Expanded Universe was no more. All for the want of a shitty religious movie--now made all the shittier.
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