The movie industry often celebrates innovative, artistic ideals that few directors bring to life in the context of teenage sci-fi films and R-action thrillers.  And yet, ancient themes and stories often explode at the box office, such as Passion of the Christ and Lincoln. Noah promises to be in this surprising category, as it offers an interesting historical piece that mixes dark, thrilling action with a very loose interpretation of a story chronicled in many ancient texts.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, who produced the hit thriller Black Swan, and starring Russell Crowe in the named role, Noah cashed in with an impressive $15.2 million draw on opening weekend. The movie’s trailer foreshadowed a dark, thrilling tale of survival, which Darren Aronofsky thrives at creating.

Set in prehistoric times, Noah, his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), adopted daughter Ila (Emma Watson) and his sons Ham (Logan Lerman), Shem (Douglas Booth) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), together venture out from a gray, seemingly scorched land to seek out Noah’s grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), to ask advice about visions Noah has seen in his dreams. Noah is the last of Abel’s line, and believes he has been predestined to build an ark to protect himself and his family from a great flood that will devour the world. As the ark is built, a self proclaimed king named Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) seeks to gather his followers to take over the ark.

Economically speaking, Paramount Pictures could have easily split this movie into two, or even created a trilogy, as many different subplots introduced unique themes on everything from the nature of sin to the sting of forbidden love. The movie had multiple climaxes, as expected plot points and meaningless side stories added unneeded minutes to a hefty 138 minute run time.

The movie consisted of multiple high action action scenes followed by longer, passive scenes where a character would take most of the attention, after which another action scene would point to another character. A character’s development paralleled their importance in the story: Noah underwent multiple shifts in character which included loyal servant of the Creator to lunatic murderer to stark realist who saw evil in every man who existed. Ila had little change in her character, as her constant objectivity and faith provide a strong base for her husband Shem.

The special effects team might as well become the director for most of the movie– every scene for the first hour consisted of either fallen angels that looked like huge rock monsters, or a green screen background that amateur artists could recreate. While some scenes displayed incredible feats of computer animation, some background set pieces and digital characters left something to be desired.

As with every movie concerning Biblical stories, controversy shrouded this blockbuster as to it’s accuracy when compared to the Biblical account of the Noah story, which consists of roughly a single chapter in the Bible, or about 2400 words. While the movie depicted a story from the Bible, it blended many interpretations of what the Biblical story represented. Finding no actual dialogue from the Noah of Genesis 6, the writers of the movie morphed the story into a sensationalized, dramatic tale, as Hollywood is famous for producing.

With a two hour run time, emotion ran high as many died and many became traumatized as result of the events that occurred. But crying might stand as a theme itself, as every character cried at least once, and crying accompanied every scene. The only joke that found its way onto the script only sparked a laugh from the characters in the film. No one in the theater laughed, or even caught it.

A successful film often tells a compelling tale of a dynamic tragic hero, and Noah is no exception. With eye-dazzling special effects, boatloads of crying, and enough storylines to write a trilogy, this film managed to tell an old story in a very creative, dark way.