Noah and his family eke out a simple existence on the desolate proto-Earth, scrounging for food and endeavouring to avoid the marauding Mad Max-like hoards, the descendants of Cain. One night, Noah gets some maddeningly obscure head-movies supposedly delivered to him by God. Like a doomsayer’s weather report, they seem to suggest that the Sky Bully is planning on reformatting Earth’s hard drive, which means that it’s up to everyone’s favourite vegetarian superhero, Noah, to save all the world’s animals.

How does he do this? Well, he builds a big shipping container, that’s how. The plan is to become the world’s first high seas smuggler, cramming as many species as he can into the floating box, ‘The Wire’ season 2-stylee. Only he and his family get to go because, well, apparently they are the only Nice Guys left on Earth. How does he know this? Well, he doesn’t. But there you go. I’m sure he had his reasons. After all, all those other people were eating meat and stuff. God is pretty vindictive in his absence here, though anyone familiar with Aronofsky’s work knows that the writer/director isn’t about to include a big spectral bearded chap explaining to Noah the difference between Sumerian cubits and Egyptian royal cubits.

Whilst this is Aronofsky’s first truly big budget movie, the auteur is still very much present in the finished product. After flirting with the mainstream in the past – he very nearly directed Batman: Year One (which later became Batman Begins) and The Wolverine (which later became, um, The Wolverine) – Aronofsky apparently had a cool $120 million to play around with here. And it’s great to see that Big Budget Aronofsky isn’t too different from Low Budget Indie Aronofsky.

The film is aided by Clint Mansell’s fantastic soundtrack, which has more than a passing resemblance to his work on The Fountain. In fact, Noah is tonally quite similar my favourite Aronofsky film, but with bonus tsunamis and stone giants. It’s kind of The Fountain meets The Lord of the Rings meets The Road, and I had a lot of fun. As a disaster movie, it’s definitely more enjoyable than anything Emmerich has put out, and there are some great performances to be found.

Crowe puts in a decent performance as the last antediluvian, whilst Jennifer Connolly is similarly strong as his wife. Emma Watson continues to prove that she was arguably the most talented of the Harry Potter young ‘uns, whilst Anthony Hopkins is his usual effortlessly charismatic self.

Aronofsky throws as much symbolism as he can at the screen to see what sticks, which isn’t surprising given the source material. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.  That said, there are some startling images, particularly in the first half hour. In fact, the only complaint I had with the film was that the final act was rather dull; all the good stuff is in the first half.

It’ll no doubt infuriate atheists and god-fearing folk in equal measure, but for my money, Noah was a pretty decent use of 2.5 hours. There are enough weird elements to keep this from being a ‘safe’ (read: boring) Biblical epic, and Aronofsky remains a brilliant actor’s director. Plus, it’s hard to go past the image of bearded men yelling at the sky in anger whilst a flood rages around them.

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The story is told on several levels. First of all, it is a retelling of the Indian epic ‘Ramayana’, which concerns the ‘good king’ Rama and his endlessly devoted wife, Sita. The tale is narrated by a trio of traditional Indian shadow puppets, who bicker casually about the specifics of events, and add their own modern-day interpretations. Interspersed with the retelling is the rather autobiographical tale of Nina and her partner, the latter of which travels to India to leave her behind. To top it all off, Sita has a habit of breaking into song. Not just any song, but the 1920s jazz tunes of Annette Hanshaw.

It’s a rather eclectic way to tell a story and for the most part, it works. Each segment is animated differently: behind the narrators is a backdrop that frequently uses a collage of photographs and still images to illustrate their point; Sita’s tale resembles the painted images you might find on ancient frescoes; the musical numbers are computer assisted, stylised versions of the same characters; and finally the biographical tale is told in a scribbly, deliberately low tech animation. It took me a moment to adjust to each of the styles, but it makes for a beautiful film overall, and strengthens the concept of concurrent narratives.

The Annette Hanshaw numbers are effective, though only to a certain extent. The first time a song popped up I quite enjoyed it, but it soon became too much. Every song is played in its entirety, and to be honest they all sound pretty much the same. They are relevant to the story, but could have done with some editing. During the second half, I almost found myself groaning each time the vinyl crackle would begin because I was desperate to continue with the central story. The ‘choreography’ also leaves a lot to be desired. At first it’s kinda cool to see Sita gyrating, but it soon becomes repetitive, and at their worst the numbers only serve to reiterate what we already know.

The narrators are the best part of the film, and their banter is so laidback that one wonders to what extent their bits were scripted. It’s a wonderful retelling, reverential but also willing to poke fun.

Sita Sings the Blues isn’t perfect. Paley’s determination to include so many songs means that the film starts to drag in the second half. It is, however, one of the most beautiful animations I’ve seen in a while, as well as being educational and emotionally-involving.

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That being said, Mongol is reasonably entertaining. It’s a stunning film to witness. The cinematography is fantastic, the locations are breathtaking, and the costumes are exquisite. The film crackles with a reality that’s sorely missing from most big budget, grandiose features of a similar ilk.

The film chronicles the early years of Temudjin – the man who would become Ghengis Khan and eventually set in motion events that would lead to the creation of the largest empire in history. What we see are the conditions in which he was raised and the events through which he lived, all of which presumably had an effect on the conqueror he would become. Basically… things were shit. The system of Khans that spread across Mongolia had a supposedly unbreakable moral code, but in actuality the tribes were constantly at odds, often finding loopholes in their laws, if not openly breaking them. As such, Temudjin (Tadanobu Asano) has those around him murdered, and is regularly captured, imprisoned and sentenced to death. All without a horse.

The horse is important, we’re told more than once. One cannot be a Khan without one, and once you see the barren, seemingly endless wastes these people have to cross, it’s understandable that our hero be wanting a steed.

The Temudjin presented here is one upon whom tragedy is thrust again and again. Through it all, however, his love for his Börte remains (Khulan Chuluun). As such, he’s portrayed as quite the hero. Comparisons with the films Braveheart and Gladiator wouldn’t be amiss. However, he’s also ruthless, and more than willing to sacrifice men for the greater good.

It takes a while, but once we get to the big battle sequence the film doesn’t disappoint. It doesn’t overly rely on CGI, and is all the more effective as a consequence.

Overall this is a brilliantly made film that I found a little boring. If the aforementioned Oscar-winning epics interested you, then Mongol will more than satisfy those cravings.

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The stars are all in attendance, trying to look important and um, historic. And the special effects are here, even if they are a little hard to swallow at times (have you tried to parallel park 1000 ships?).

Okay so most people know bits and pieces about this story. Basically we’re all waiting for the Horse and the Heel, and we’re not disappointed. In fact I quite enjoyed watching this film at the time, but can’t imagine watching it again. It’s great to see a spear fight, since I can remember seeing that done before, but I got a bit sick of Achilles’ Cool Fight Move which was repeated way too often.

It’s strange to see Brad Pitt in such a muscle-bound heroic role. Whilst his actions are often reprehensible, it’s strange to imagine that this is the same guy that seemed to eschew traditional heroic roles in favour for Tyler Durden et. al. Helen is disappointing, but I suppose she does have to perform under a fair amount of pressure. She’s a very standard beauty, nothing particularly ethereal, as if the filmmakers wanted to play it safe. Bana was fine, but as with Black Hawk Down and The Hulk, he simply lacks the charisma to truly hold my attention the way he did in Chopper.

As far as epics go, at least we’ve come a long way from those of the 70s, which were much longer and had much more talking. There’s less room for self-indulgent performances in the more fast-paced Hollywood machine, which I would usually curse, but here it works well.

The constant reference to wanting to secure a place in history is interesting. I’m not sure if the people in the history books always strove to be in the history books, but there you go.
It’s good at what it does, but not really my cup of tea.

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