Humanity Doesn’t Deserve to Survive. Because man has destroyed nature and therefore deserves to be destroyed, Noah is left in the odd position of saving his family alongside the animals. That’s odd because Noah and family are also humans – humans who have also exploited nature in order to survive. In the Biblical narrative, God saves Noah because he is not immoral – because he walks with God. In the Noah story, God chooses Noah because Noah supposedly has the strength to do away with all of humanity. God chooses Hitler. What Aronofsky never quite explains is why God rewards Noah for failing in his mission – and why, if humanity was meant to survive and Noah’s children will be sinners, God doesn’t just send a couple cases of TB to finish off the job. Instead, Aronofsky’s Noah sits by idly while the last of the humans drown just yards from his boat, screaming pitifully. Then he proceeds to consider whether or not to demolish his own kids.

Noah Is a Homicidal Maniac. Instead, in the film, God sends Noah to finish off the job – even if that means murdering his newly-born granddaughters. Granddaughters cannot be born, of course, because Noah’s sons could theoretically pair off with their nieces to reproduce. And so the climactic scene of the film has Russell Crowe hovering over his grandchildren with a knife in his hand. He only changes his mind because…well, because…love. Yes, that’s the Hollywood all-purpose deux ex machina, even if Hollywood scorns the traditional deux.