The Book of Eli (2010) review

The Book of Eli

This movie has a really great cast, which includes Tom Waits, Gary Oldman, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beales, Malcolm McDowell, Mila Kunis, and of course, Denzel Washington, among others.

This year’s apocalypses are looking a lot like last years. The dry, dusty desert is a convenient theme, ‘cuz shits all dried up after “the War.”

Spoilers from here on…

In this one, Denzel is a totally ass-kickin’ rover, just walking around, killin’ the odd bad guy(s). He camps out, because that’s pretty much what you do when the world ends, and reads a Bible every night.

Sound of screeching brakes. OK. Here’s the deal. 30 years after “the War” books are scarce. Gary Oldman is a warlord with a couple of towns under his belt (because he has a couple hidden springs to get fresh water from) but of course wants to rule the world. Ray Stevenson is his henchman. Ray wants to sleep with Mila Kunis, who is Jennifer Beals’ daughter. Beals is Oldman’s main squeeze. She is blind. Lots of people are blind because of the war. Whatever. She is hot. Mila is hot. Ray wants to sleep with Mila.

There is a kindly couple of cannibals later in the movie played by Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour. You can tell they are cannibals because they are shaky “from eating too much human meat” (it’s a disease called ‘kuru’). There are fights, shootouts, etc.

The essential failure of the movie is that Denzel’s character thinks he’s on a divine mission to restore the Bible to people. Gary Oldman wants to use the Bible to enslave people. There are numerous references to people burning all the Bibles after the war because those people blamed the War on the Bible (which seems reasonable enough).

Basically, it seems Denzel is in a different movie than everyone else, because his character (and it seems, the real Denzel) really believes the Word, so to speak. But Oldman wants it for its corrupting power, and it ends up in the hands of good people, led by McDowell, who live on Alcatraz and are trying to restore, preserve all of mankind’s great works. But after everything the book just ends up on a shelf next to the Torah and the Koran. Whatevs.

The supposedly big shocker is that Denzel’s character reads the book in Braille and his BAD-MOTHERFUCKING AS HAS BEEN FUCKIN’ BLIND THE WHOLE FUCKIN’ TIME.

Bullshit. No matter how much they try to backtrack that one, that character wasn’t no blind motherfucker until the very end of that movie. Whatever.

Of course, 30 years after “the War” a few people still have cars and trucks. Saved gas? Distilled alcohol? Right. Not enough water to drink, but enough to distill alcohol for car chases. Bullshit.

Mila and Jennifer look freshly made up and super hot all through the movie.

Tom Waits is good as “the Engineer.”

Ray Stevenson is underused.

Gary Oldman is pretty good.

Overall, not a terrible movie, and enjoyable enough, but full of holes, and with an irritating and somewhat sanctimonious performance by Washington. Two compost heaps out of five.