Part of this year’s Lenten discipline for many religious people has been to see two bad religious movies, “Noah” and “God’s Not Dead.” Both left me longing for the comparative moral simplicity and integrity of “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
In “Noah,” the main character is a brooding, misanthropic vegan. One hopes that Russell Crowe, a fine actor, does not end up being typecast a la Charlton Heston. There just aren’t many parts for brooding, misanthropic vegans. The movie itself consists of tedium punctuated by anachronism, sanctimony and animated rock people. It contains just enough spiritual pretention to make you wonder afterward if you have missed something important. You haven’t. The movie’s guiding philosophy — civilization bad, nature good — is as complex as the one in Disney’s “Pocahontas.” With worse music and more cannibalism.
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