Were this a film by a lesser director, it would be easier to forgive these failings. It would be easy to enjoy Noah as a well-made popcorner that dares to explore dark themes while providing an intense visual experience. But what we have here is about 60 percent of a film that’s about 140 percent longer and more flawed than we would’ve liked. It crumbles under the weight of its own myth – and that myth is Aronofsky, not Noah.

Noah is superbly inventive, but much too overwrought. Aronofsky’s experiment has the kind of seriousness and nerve that makes watching it necessary as well as tedious.