"The Book of Eli" or "Denzel Washington is Cooler in Slow Motion"

So as promised I did go and see "The Book of Eli" this week, which I had been looking forward because really there has been a fair lack of post-apocalyptic films recently. Then again I believe in times of economic down turns the general public tend to move towards more optimistic cinema rather than depressing hell holes. Anyhow come along with me now as we enter into a world quite like our own except everything is blown up, rapists roam the roads and a single man will bring hope. Sounds like "Mad Max 2" ey?

SPOILER TIME

The film starts with a dark forest and a very hairless cat feasting on a dead body while a man in a gas mask lays on the ground aiming a bow at the clearly staving animal. The bow fires and from the first minute we see the thing that annoyed me the most about this movie, unneeded slow motion. The arrow slowly moves with bad CGI before impaling the cat and fading to a different scene of Denzel's Eli walking down a long long road very very slowly. Yes apparently Denzel Washington looks so cool walking that we need to see it over and over. Some might argue that it's to show his incredibly long journey and how far he has traveled. Fair enough but that doesn't explain why the hell it's in slow motion, only cool things like arrows flying trough air are supposed to be in slow motion, its a law of cinema! Anyway Eli slowly makes it to a shake where in he finds a dead body and makes camp for the night also choosing to barbecue the cat he had killed earlier. Morning comes and Eli walks yet again through this over exposed wasteland leading him to a girl with a broken shopping cart who wants help with repairing the cart. Anyway it (obviously) is a trap and Eli quickly hacks and slashes through the men before leaving the shopping trolley bait girl to die I guess. The road takes Eli to another situation where by another gang is attacking a couple and instead of dropping down to save them he just mutters about "keeping to the path" while they preceded to rape the girl.

The gang then rides their motorbikes to a town where they report to our clear bad guy Gary Oldman, who is always evil unless it's a "Batman" movie. Apparently our villain, Carnegie is sending these scavengers out to collect books in hopes that he might find one very powerful paperback. Eli walks into town to recharge his ipod and get something to drink but runs into the rapist book collecting gang while in the bar, who don't take kindly to...well anyone it seems. Eli again kills them all with ease and gets Carnegie's attention who tries to hire him but to no avail. Carnegie suggests the Eli stay the night and sample some local hospitality *wink wink* and gets a girl named Solara (Mila Kunis or the chick from "That 70's show") to seduce Eli. Solara fails because Eli would rather just eat and teach her how to pray which she later teaches to her mother. Carnegie hears them communing with God and realises that Eli must have the all powerful book that he is looking for, Eli however escapes before Carnegie can question him. But Eli has one very important thing to do before he leave, collect his still charging ipod. Carnegie and his men intercept Eli before he can leave but again Eli kicks the crap out of everyone and leaves town.

Solara follows him and the two share some buddy time before Eli dumps her because its too dangerous or something. She tries to catch up to Eli but runs into...the same girl with the broken shopping cart. The new group of scavengers capture Solara and try to rape her, lucky for her though Eli appears and kills the rapists with arrows to the crotch. Carnegie and his men give chase as well by this time and Solara and Eli continue walking. The unlikely pair reach a house owned by two old survivalist cannibals who serve them tea and play records. Carnegie though doesn't like tea parties and decides to crash it, leading to a stand off with the group. The old cannibals are killed and both Eli and Solara are captured. Carnegie shoots Eli and takes his Bible and companion. Solara however kills some of Carnegie's men and hijacks one of the cars, speeding back to aid the now dying Eli who she finds is still walking out west. Carnegie decides not pursue them and go back with his all powerful prize while Eli and Solara make it all the way to San Francisco. Eventually the two make it Alcatraz where a group is trying to retain culture and would be able to keep the Bible safe if Eli had it.

Fortunately for Eli he has memorized the whole Bible because in a dramatic twist it turns out he's been blind this whole time. you know what that means, the Bible is in braille and Carnegie can't use it. Eli recites the Bible so it can be rewritten and dies while Carnegie's empire crashes because too many of his men had died pursuing the now useless book. Solara takes Eli's weapons and heads back out into the world to...do something. The End.

Ok. Firstly I did enjoy this film greatly, it had enough action and great performances to keep my attention and want more. However that said this film does have numerous faults in it's story line that should not have really been there and the major one is the suggestion that Eli has been blind for the whole movie. Now I can buy a blind guy kicking the crap out of people that's all cool, what I don't buy is the fact that throughout the whole film we can see the Eli can clearly see. We see him look at the sky in the morning, look at things around him and look at the people he's talking to. It doesn't detract much from the story but it certainly takes you out of the film and go "hang on a minute what about when...". This and the stupid use of slow motion in almost every walking scene got on my nerves.

Other than that though I quite enjoyed this and it had many homages to previous post-apocalyptic auctioneers and even had a cool little reference to the film that basically spawned the genre "A Boy and his Dog" which most people have never heard of. The action is smooth and well handled along with some very in depth characters, even Ray Stevenson's henchman seems clearly uncertain about following his employer's every wish.

I'm gonna give it
4 out of 5 stars...


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