NOAH

So what does it take to save the Earth – and all the creatures on it? Well, those familiar with the Old Testament will know that an ark is a fair place to start. In the book of Genesis, Noah is told to build a vessel out of ‘gopher wood’ and that it should measure 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high.

Remarkably, after much number-crunching, University of Leicester students recently revealed that such a structure really would have remained buoyant – even with Noah’s family and two of every animal species on board.

But what of Darren Aronofsky’s new Noah epic? Does it float? Or is it headed straight for Davy Jones’s locker?

It is certainly an ambitious story to tell on film – even for a director as creative as Aronofsky (Black Swan). For apart from the sheer challenge of creating a global apocalypse, millions of CGI animals and a wooden boat big enough to house them all, the central narrative is one we already know inside out. Just how do you keep an audience captivated through 138 minutes of such a familiar story?

Aronofsky certainly takes a few liberties. For a start, this isn’t the usual biblical world of Ben-Hur or The Greatest Story Ever Told. At its heart is a grimy civilisation of protoindustrialists, who are led by Ray Winstone (as a descendant of murderous Cain) and are fast mining and fracking creation into a grey-tinged wasteland.

And then there’s the race of (mumbling) stone giants, fallen angels that swore to protect Adam, but seem to be melted off cuts from the recent Transformers films. (They prove particularly useful in the battle scenes.)

It’s also worth noting that while this a story of Creation and its undoing, God is voiceless and invisible throughout.

Certainly the film hovers on the edge of silliness, and there are moments on the ark when the plot meanders into the doldrums, too. But Russell Crowe (and his beard) saves the day. He gives the character of Noah a gravitas and a humanity that few others could. In fact, he makes an otherwise ordinary film entertaining and at times deeply engaging.

Emma Watson (as his adopted daughter), Jennifer Connelly (his wife) and Anthony Hopkins (his grandfather, Methuselah) all do their bit, but apart from some magical special effects – including a stunning Creation sequence – this is ultimately the Crowe show. And Noah stays afl oat because of it.