Last evening my wife and I went and saw the movie “Noah”. I thought the movie was well done with fantastic acting and marvelous cinematography. The sets were amazing, the animated “rock people” were believable, the arc looked like something that would have been built “back in the day” and the war/fight scenes exciting. If you have never heard the story of Noah, here it is in a nutshell. The world is consumed in hate and evil and “The Creator” has decided to cleanse the Earth and start over. He contacts Noah (who is the last in the line of good) to build an arc, take a male and female of each species, and ride out the floods.

That said, the fun begins when you start thinking about the movie and its meaning. The National Religious Broadcasters threatened to boycott the film unless Paramount, the film’s distributor and co-financier with New Regency, issued a disclaimer that the movie isn’t a literal interpretation of the Genesis story. The movie has been banned in the United Arab Emirates, Quatar and Behrain because it depicts a prophet. Under pressure, Paramount altered its advertising to say the movie was “inspired” by the Bible story and is not the Bible story.

Come on people !!!  “Noah” is a movie. It is not a sermon or a call to prayer. It cost $130-million to make and is intended to entertain, inspire and make money. It does not presume to encourage religious conversion, disrespect a prophet or evangelize a snake, though it does glorify virtue in the highest. Russell Crowe as Noah, Jennifer Connelly as his wife and Emma Watson as their adopted daughter do great jobs and the movie is very entertaining.

If you want to start talking about God, religion and just how all this stuff got here on Earth, Noah is a good starting point. As a matter of fact, I also recommend the television series “Cosmos” that is being aired on the FOX Network if you want to think about creation and the start of life. Go see “Noah”, it is quite a flick!