The la-di-da movie Noah (here the live from the Uk première) by Darren Aronofsky, while leaving the religious controversies outside of judgment, it’s not fully convincing.

Despite all the words spent in the last few months about a different story from the biblical one, in reality there is nothing strikingly new in the Aronofsky’s movie.

The director, before the screening in Mexico (first stop of the Noah Tour) said: “Anything you’re expecting you’re f**king wrong”. Of course, in a few hours the message had arrived all around the world. Well, after seeing the movie, that remains is to praise those who had the idea of that beautiful publicity stunt designed to stem the public’s curiosity to see a different story from the one that could read in the Bible and persuade them to buy the movie ticket.

Apart from a few interesting ideas such as the creation of the adopted daughter Ila (another very good job from Emma Watson) and the anesthetic  for the animals on the Ark, the only real big news is that the story about the failure of humanity is transformed into a mix of a deep family drama typical of the American TV series of the ’90s and action sequences typical of Narnia.

Noah (Russell Crowe, one of the few actors who could play this role without sinking the film even if he is not great as in Les Misérables)  is described as a man willing to do anything, even to massacre a group of bandits and force his family to take refuge in a prohibited area inhabited by the Watchers (not those of the TV series Chosen).

The Watchers are stone figures driven out from Eden, which persecuted by humanity, protect Noah during the building of the Ark.

Noah is also someone  willing to sacrifice his children if is God’s will.

His grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkis) convinces him to follow his visions from which Noah draws amazing deductions as when, seeing the forest, he proclaims: “This is our Ark” and starts to build it.

This is just one example of the many holes of an unconvincing screenplay.

Another weakness is that this film, given the importance of the topic, it should be a classic example of art in the service of the story, but instead is quite the opposite: the story is overshadowed by the continual succession of visual effects (perhaps to justify the $125 million budget), which, however, do not surprise the eyes of regular Marvel audience.

Far from the masterpiece Black Swan, latest Aronofsky’s movie, despite some good ideas like the snake skin used as amulet, also has some holes in the editing that make the journey on the Ark a crossing difficult to accomplish.

“A great flood is coming! We build a vessel to survive the fall! We build an Ark”.