Taking advantage of my last weekday as an unemployed person, I caught the first matinee showing of The Book of Eli at the local googleplex Friday. It is another of this year’s crop of apocalyptic films that began (humorously) with Zombieland, went craptacular with 2012, then ultra-depressing with The Road.
Interestingly, Eli could be seen as a sort of sequel to The Road. The apocalypse that The Man and The Boy trudge through in The Road occurred only ten years previously. In Eli it’s thirty years in the past. Both movies are filmed in very muted colors, and in both films the majority of human beings shown are amoral predators. In this one, however, the main character travels, initially, alone – and he is ultra-competent at defending himself and his possessions. I’ll give the Hughes brothers credit – the action scenes are very well done.
There are, of course, plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through, but if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and go with it the story is pretty good. Gary Oldman does a fine job of playing the same character he played in The Fifth Element and The Professional – a whacked-out power-crazed nutjob. Jennifer Beals’ hair puts in a nice appearance, and Mila Kunis did her job as the apprentice seeking protection and knowledge from the Master. The sets were sufficiently post-apocalypty, but I wonder why there were two concrete cooling towers out in the desert with nothing else around them?
The interesting thing about the film, however, was its pro-Christian message. How did that happen? Of course, there’s a scene that puts it all in “perspective,” in the end, but the plot twist at the climax carries a significant message that only the deaf, blind and stupid could miss.
I give it about 8.5 out of 10. Definitely not a waste of my time or my money.