Movie reviews: Noah, Divergent, Rio 2

A hard rain’s gonna fall in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (12A), an inventive and occasionally combative retelling of the Old Testament story of flood, divine retribution and human salvation. Noah (Russell Crowe) receives a vision from the Creator that warns of a deluge that will wipe an irredeemably wicked mankind from the face of the earth, and proceeds to build an ark that will save the world’s flesh and fowl. While the basic blueprint will be familiar, Aronofsky and his co-writer Ari Handel expand the tale to include mythic elements with echoes of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, harking back to Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in Eden in order to introduce fallen angels who have incurred the Creator’s displeasure for attempting to help mankind come to terms with its bleak existence. It’s an ambitious attempt to please both those who believe in the Bible as a literal text and those who understand the story as a cautionary fable, with Aronofsky’s epic vision encapsulated in a sequence in which Noah relates the Biblical story of creation over visuals that offer a brief history of the theory of evolution. It’s no great criticism to say that Noah is a noble failure: where some aspects, such as the ‘rock-giant’ fallen angels, are clumsily rendered, the post-apocalyptic setting and fatalistic atmosphere are hauntingly achieved. While Ray Winstone’s Cockney accent grates, his representation of anarchy in a lawless, godless land is a chilling one. Russell Crowe is in towering form as the brooding, reluctant prophet of doom charged with an impossible task, and he gets strong support from Jennifer Connelly as Noah’s wife Naameh, Logan Lerman as his son Ham, and Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah.

Adapted from the bestselling young adult novels of Veronica Roth, Divergent (12A) is a futuristic tale set 100 years after ‘The War’, when society has been divided into five distinct but harmonious categories. When she reaches the appropriate age, teenager Beatrice (Shailene Woodley), born into the self-effacing and charitable Abnegation faction, opts to join Dauntless, the group charged with policing and security. Soon Beatrice — now Tris — discovers that Dauntless is a quasi-fascist organisation, and that politician Jeanine (Kate Winslet) is planning a coup that will render all factions subservient to Dauntless. Neil Burger’s movie doesn’t offer a very plausible vision of the future but Divergent’s central thesis, that difference is to be celebrated rather than feared, is an empowering one. Woodley is a tad stiff in her portrayal of Tris’s development from mousy, sensitive girl to kick-ass rebellion leader, but Theo James, as her love interest and fellow rebel Four, puts in a charismatic turn that marks him out as a talent to watch.

Rio 2 (G) opens with blue macaw Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), Jewel (Anne Hathaway) and their fledglings happily domiciled in the city of Rio — or as happily as the perpetually morose Blu is ever likely to get — until Jewel insists that the family takes a vacation to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in search of other blue macaws. Once there, Blu finds himself plunged into a life-or-death battle against humans who are illegally logging huge swathes of the forest, while also fighting off his arch-nemesis Nigel (Jermaine Clement) and trying to live up to the standards expected by his father-in-law, the patriarchal Eduardo (Andy Garcia). The story is by no means the most engaging you’ll encounter in an kids’ movie this year, but the Amazon setting does offer the opportunity for gloriously colourful animation and some quirky characters, with the highlight a delightfully subversive torch song sung by the pink poison frog Gabi (Kristin Chenoweth).

Finally, The Japanese Film Festival continues at the Gate Multiplex and Triskel Christchurch until April 9, featuring some of Japan’s most acclaimed contemporary directors. The programme includes The Great Passage, Japan’s official submission to the 2014 Oscars, and Ken Watanabe’s Unforgiven, a remake of Clint Eastwood’s classic Western. Meanwhile, anime highlights from the programme include Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises, and the offbeat love story Pateme Inverted. Also showing are Lesson of Evil, The Story of Yonosuke and the classic Woman of the Dunes (1964). For all the details, log on to www.jff.ie