For all those who watched Noah in Idaho Falls, didn’t Russell Crowe portray accurately what pagan propitiation is all about?

Pagan propitiation is about appeasing the gods in their wrath with sacrifices and bribes.

Is that similar to the propitiation noted in I John 2:2?

I like how John Stott answers the question.

There can, therefore, be no question of human beings appeasing an angry deity by their gifts.  The Christian propitiation is quite different, not only in the character of the divine anger but in the means by which it is propitiated.  It is an appeasement of the wrath of God by the love of God through the gift of God.  The initiative is not taken by us, nor even by Christ, but by God himself in sheer unmerited love.  His wrath is averted not by any external gift, but by his own self-giving to die the death of sinners.  This is the means he has himself contrived by which to turn his own wrath away (Pss. 78:38, 85:2-3, 103:8-10, Mi. 7:18-19).