Noah

Perhaps one of the Ten Commandments should be "Thou shalt not make an Old Testament epic".

The CGI animals are spectacular, the battles less so and, though none of it really makes sense, neither, some might argue, does the Bible.

It's as odd and schizophrenic a picture as you're likely to see in the focus-grouped, play-it-safe moviemaking climate of the moment, and the fact that it exists at all is sort of a (ha ha) miracle.

It explores concepts like grace, justice, pride, guilt, and love. It respects its source material and respects the power of human imagination. It takes a sober look at the evil in the human heart. That is the sort of movie worth watching.

The film oscillates between glitzy existential horror and somber showbiz spectacle.

Aronofsky's signature grandiosity is too often at odds with -- and diminished by -- the familial melodrama he has created aboard the vessel.

The film questions a creator’s obligations at earthly and spiritual levels, with complications that concern masculine privilege to color the margins. "Noah" doesn’t preach to the choir. It dares the choir to keep up amid minor chords & melodic inversion.

As an exercise in retelling the story, it'll draw more laughs and grunts of incomprehension than actual admiration. Still, Noah is a brave film – and that's always worth appreciating.

Ancient mythology and modern cosmology come together in the story of Genesis, told in Noah’s own words and illustrated with imagery reminiscent of Cosmos, a wedding of science and religion in a way respectful of both.

It’s a movie that teases us with what it could have been but ultimately stumbles because of what it actually is.