The Book of Eli

CHANNEL: Movies

Directed by The Hughes Brothers (Allen and Albert Hughes)

Starring Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, and Gary Oldman

Don’s take:
AN APOCALYPTIC MISFIRE

There are about 5 really great minutes in Book of Eli, the latest film starring the ever more bad-ass Denzel Washington. They happen in the first 15 minutes of the movie. Then, perhaps in an attempt to give us, the audience, a sense what the characters are feeling, the rest of the movie feels like a long walk in the desert: torturous and uneventful.

How do they expect us to be entertained by run-of-the-mill shootouts after giving us a silhouette of a man taking out six or seven armed men with a machete. And how do they expect us to care about the development of their silly story after showing us a massive bar room brawl that leaves 8 men dead or wounded and our hero the only man standing. These spectacular scenes had me salivating for more of the same, but it was not to come.

After thrilling with these sequences, the movie devolves into a corny sci-fi adventure told with affection by the Hughes Brothers and Washington, but ultimately ineffective. Washington plays, Eli, a modern day Ronin, a samurai with no lord, which I guess is not exactly right, because he does have a lord: THE Lord God himself (or herself). The world has fallen into darkness following what is described as “the Flash” — some kind of cataclysmic event; a nuclear bomb perhaps, or possibly the beginning stages of the sun’s death. We learn that Eli was instructed by God to be the custodian of the last known copy of the King James Bible and to deliver it to a people who are worthy of its words. His journey hits a snag when he encounters a corrupt city run by the evil and greedy Carnegie played by Gary Oldman. In the most heavy handed metaphor of this year so far (which isn’t hyperbolic since the year is less than a month old), Carnegie lusts greedily for a copy of the bible for the power and wealth it would bring to him.

One of the things that really bothered me about this movie was that felt like it was preaching to me much of the time. The message I took from the film was that the world fell into darkness by in large because the word of God was taken away from the people. But without giving anything away, for anyone else who may be bothered by this, the movie tries to redeem itself in the end and adding a twist that makes the movie not about Christianity but about the light that religion in general brings to the world; however, this twist seems added in — an afterthought. After all was said and done, I still felt that the Hughes Brothers were sermonizing a little.

This would not have been enough to sink the movie for me, but the Hughes Brothers do not do enough to make me interested in their movie. It lacked the profundity it thought it had and the twists were far too predictable. The characters were all too one dimensional and lacked charisma; even Washington, normally a lot of fun to watch, was fairly boring here in Eli.

The Hughes Brothers try to dress up their movie with heavy guns and shootouts galore, and while shootouts don’t bother me, I don’t find them particularly entertaining. Ultimately, the gunfire and explosions did nothing to camouflage the mediocrity of the film.

2 out of 5

Albert’s take:
A DOG-EARED BOOK WELL WORTH A PEEK

Speaking strictly of visuals, which are more or less the raison d’etre for this kind of movie, “The Book of Eli” by the Hughes brothers offers nothing we haven’t already seen in the “Mad Max” movies, “I Am Legend,” or even “The Postman” and “Six String Samurai.” But that’s not to say the movie’s derivative — it’s just that other filmmakers have already exhausted the possibilities of the postapocalyptic road movie, in my mind.

Had those other movies not preceded this one, I’d be inclined to call the movie visionary and groundbreaking and all sorts of other rare nice things. But as it is, the movie has to settle for the distinction of being brilliantly written, designed, shot, paced, choreographed and acted. Which is really not so bad, when you think about it.

5 out of 5

And now… THE 180 DEGREE RULE

ALBERT:YES! We’ve done it. Our biggest difference of opinion yet. It’s almost as if we watched two totally different movies — I thought the movie was strong exactly where you thought it was weak.

DON: Yes. Imagine my surprise. Visionary? Groundbreaking? I thought the movie looked like a junkyard in with a sepia filter on it. Tell me more about what you loved about this movie.

ALBERT: It synthesized the visuals of all postapocalytpic movies past and, I’d say, outdid them all. A masterpiece of set design, wardrobe, photography. These are the brothers who made “Menace II Society,” and this movie is light-years past it, in every way imaginable. iMDB tells me Allen and Albert Hughes haven’t made a movie since 2001’s “From Hell,” but clearly they haven’t been idling.

DON: I had a much different reaction to the art direction of the movie. I almost laughed when I saw Mila Kunis’s “rugged” look after they left the compound. My friend Mike and I joked that it was Abercrombie and Fitch’s Mad Max themed fall line. I agree there was some great cinematography here. There were some sequences that really impressed me. The opening sequence with the silhouette of Eli fighting that gang of marauders was my favorite of the movie.

ALBERT: Mila Kunis, not the movie’s strongest point. But Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman make almost any movie worth watching just by showing up, and they brought the wasteland visuals to life for me. Washington convinced me he was a man who wandered the land on faith, with only survival on his mind and without any shred of conscience. He made the movie minimalist and psychological, to me. I haven’t seen the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” but now I don’t think I have to — Washington could have played the character of The Man with total conviction.

DON: How ironic is it that the last two movies we saw, Eli andDaybreakers, both sci-fi fantasy flicks, were my movie picks and movies that I don’t think you really had any interest in seeing, but when it came down to it, you loved these films while I left disappointed. Anything to that you think?
ALBERT: Maybe my jadedness has a side benefit: low expectations — haha! I disagree with you on the movie’s action sequences. I thought they were expertly placed in the storyline, punctuating the bleakness and the wandering at just the right times. They never felt forced to me, and in their own way they were as minimalist as the rest of the movie.

DON: Haha, I don’t know that gatling guns and grenades can ever be minimalist! For me, they felt more like interludes of action to keep the audience awake. But the wrong kind of action. I love me some gun action, but prefer it when done artfully, like John Woo’s the Killerfor example. Here, it was like the Revolutionary War: line up men, shoot. The shootouts were done as well as most action flicks, but for me, there was nothing remarkable about them.

ALBERT: Well, as poetic as Gatling cannon fire and grenade explosions can be, I think the Hughes brothers succeeded! I think I went into ecstasy for a moment, at one of those explosions. About the religious theme — again I disagree! That was what pushed my rating to 5. Before the last few twists of the movie, “Eli” seemed just an excellently crafted flick to me. But then it became profound, I thought. Religion was well woven into the plot, and didn’t come off as heavyhanded to me. The movie seemed to ask us to look beyond the book and the words, if anything. And (SPOILER ALERT) this is the first movie I can remember that suggests the world will be saved by knowledge, not by technology. That’s not just novel, it’s noble.

That does it for another round of The Alias Men. Thanks again for all your support! We’ll be back Thursday, January 21st with a review of Peter Jackson’s latest film “The Lovely Bones.” Until then, please leave your thoughts in our comments section! And show your support by joining the Alias Friends, our subscriber zone! Alias Don, signing off…

-Alias Men