Review: THE BOOK OF ELI

I’m starting to think that I should no longer give my opinion of a movie right after I see it to any of my peers. Even if I’m not so impressed with a movie, I always try to come up with something vaguely positive to say about a movie. I’ll say something like “oh, the ending was a big surprise” (translation: I don’t really remember the rest of the movie) or “it was visually stunning” (translation: the colors AND the guys were pretty). When I was walking out of THE BOOK OF ELI this week I made the mistake of saying to a peer how I really felt at that moment, to which he replied:

“oh really? I thought it was great! Such a smart movie.”

I was dumbfounded. Had he seen the same movie as me? We were talking about THE BOOK OF ELI right?

Attempting to re-navigate the conversation, I threw my support behind THE BOOK OF ELI’s most enjoyable detail—the ending. Now, before you read too much into that, the ending does not contain an M. Night Shyamalan type twist, it was just a nice resolution to the almost two-hour hero’s journey we had just taken.

THE BOOK OF ELI opens with Eli (Denzel Washington) killing and eating a cat. It was gross, even if you hate cats. The world has been destroyed by a nuclear holy war, and all that's left is desert and bad teeth. He's traveled over 30 years carrying a Bible to a safe place. He stops in a settled community run by Carnegie (Gary Oldman) to get a charge for his battery pack and then he wants to be on his way. Carnegie's goons have been sent out to find books and they keep coming back with handfuls of books but not the one Carnegie wants. After a freak attack in Carnegie's bar, Eli stays the night and is visited by barslave Solara (Mila Kunis). Solara discovers that Eli has a book, more specifically the book Carnegie wants, and they quickly escape the town to continue on Eli's trek. Carnegie follows after them, never mind the unbelievability that a GMC Suburban can drive across the desert on a tank of gas--I'm just saying.

As I mentioned, THE BOOK OF ELI had a pretty clever ending. I liked that in this world books are sacred and a literate man could bring together people—for evil and for good. The whole Eli-can-kill-everyone-in-his-way thing didn't work so well for me, because I have trouble believing a holy man could so easily kill that many people--even if he was guarding God's book from evil people. Ultimately the action scenes were really good, but there was a lot of down time between them. Washington and Kunis were compelling but it felt like Oldman just phoned in his performance--and I could barely understand him through his mumbling.

Thankfully, I did not have to write my review right after watching the movie, I’m sure it would have been a lot different and less considerate. The action scenes in THE BOOK OF ELI were really good, and ultimately the plot was intelligent for an action film. It was a little hit-you-over-the-head religious for my taste, but it's definitely a story that religious and secular audiences can understand and enjoy.

P.S. I still don’t believe that a Suburban can make it across the desert on one tank of gas!