The Archbishop of Canterbury has had himself photographed with Russell Crowe, after attending the screening of Noah in which Russell C has the title role. ‘A great visit…impressive,’ he tweeted of Crowe. Which was one way round saying that the film itself was tripe, though his spokesman said that he found it ‘interesting and thought-provoking’, which is presumably an Anglican way of saying ‘rubbish’.
The Archbish may have been completely thrown, in fact, by Darren Aronofsky’s entirely personal take on the flood story in Genesis. In the Bible, God destroys the earth and the animals with a deluge that undoes his own work of creation, and then remakes it all over again courtesy of Noah, his offspring and the inmates of the Ark (the fish are all fine, obviously).
In this version, Russell Crowe-as-Noah goes one better than God and decides that humanity doesn’t deserve to survive, so he’s not entirely thrilled when Emma Watson – Mrs Shem – gives every sign of thwarting him.
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