The Book of Eli

by Rebecca McCarthy

Post-Apocalyptic Movies, My Achilles’ Heel

I love a good apocalyptic movie. Everything from Mad Max to Zombieland, I eat it up. I even read apocalyptic novels. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Max Brooks’ World War Z, I love the whole genre. Maybe it appeals to some deep-seated wish that if the shit hits the fan I’d be able to be the prepared protagonist, finally useful in the new world instead of being just another cog in the present one. That or I just love the action. (I should note that I can also appreciate the pristine future of Star Trek, but unless an alien race like the Vulcans actually reveals themselves to humanity or giant telepathic squid monsters get dropped on Earth I just don’t see the future ending up so clean.) Either way, I love apocalyptic films. So when I heard that not only was The Book of Eli another post-apocalyptic story with Denzel Washington, but this book that Eli is carrying might also be the Bible, I knew I had to see this movie. To my great surprise, I was able to enjoy the movie as an action flick without feeling insulted or pigeonholed as a Christian. That, more than anything, makes this a surprising movie.

Religion in general seems to have gotten a bad reputation in Hollywood and most movies will take religious stereotypes to the extreme. This means that most Christians are portrayed as close-minded, loudly-opinionated bigots who are usually the antagonists, Bible-beating the heroic brow of some sympathetic protagonist. It’s an insulting image created around the squeaky wheels in the religious world that usually get the metaphorical oil from the press, and unfortunately it’s what I and most movie-goers have come to expect to see on the big screen. The Book of Eli sets that stereotype aside, placing the idea that Denzel Washington’s character Eli is a Christian into the background and focusing on the task at hand. This makes for a movie that both I and my self-proclaimed secular boyfriend were able to enjoy without either of us feeling uncomfortable. This, my friends, is an amazing first.

Eli is set in a post-fallout, Mad Max sort of world where food and water are scarce and the roads are filled with robbers turned cannibals. There are hints throughout some of the movie’s dialog as to what happened, but the writers don’t try to over-explain anything, which makes the situation more believable for me. The “whys” in these situations don’t matter as much as the human reaction to the disaster and the reconstruction of the new order, because ultimately stories are about human nature, right? We are shown a little of Eli’s suggested daily routine as we watch Denzel kill a hairless cat for food, search an abandoned house, charge up his iPod with an old battery (which kind I have no idea. I’d be useless in an apocalypse; I like conditioner, chapstick and Oreo cookies), and read from his book. I’ve always been a fan of Denzel, especially after seeing him in Man on Fire, so his very presence in this film gives it serious points.

To top things off the villain is Gary Oldman. This man has played some of the best villains, in my opinion. I especially loved him in that BMW commercial where he plays Satan. Remember when BMW had that series of commercials by famous directors? Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Trust me, Oldman is a fantastic villain. He plays Carnegie, the tyrannical leader of a motley new town of survivors (think, “Who runs Bartertown?”), made up of those who are not eating human flesh. Carnegie is looking for a very specific book that he can use, to quote Marx, as the opiate of the people. Carnegie recognizes the power this book can hold over his fiefdom and he wishes to use it as a weapon to keep control and to expand his town. Since most Bibles were burned, Eli’s really is the last, which leads to pretty much all of the conflict in the movie. Still, Gary Oldman against Denzel Washington is a wonderful pairing.

The cinematography is stunning. There are some beautifully shot fight scenes in this movie that just blew me away. (I told you I like the action.) The first fight scene with Denzel under the overpass, all in silhouette, is genius. The camera also moves about the movie in interesting ways, especially during the Gatling gun scene. You’ll just have to see what I mean — it’s great. Really, it’s kind of hard to review this movie because I don’t want to give anything away this time.

Now, since I’ve gotten all of my giddy praise out of my system, it’s time to talk about what disappointed me. Come on, as opinionated as I am did you really think the movie was going to get away without any complaints? I have to nitpick, and in this case the nit looks very much like Mila Kunis. Sorry, Kunis, loved you in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but you just don’t have the screen power of Denzel or Oldman. Kunis’s character, Solara, is supposed to have been born after the great apocalyptic event. That is fine. However, there is something horribly modern about Kunis that just can’t be hidden, no matter how old the clothes or how much dust you put on her. Kunis’s mannerisms just didn’t seem to gel with a low-tech, human-eat-human world. Granted, there could be the argument that Solara was raised in the makeshift town under the protection of Carnegie, so maybe she would still have a bit of privileged teen clinging to her personality, but at times that felt like a stretch. Still, she didn’t detract enough to spoil anything, and every movie has a hitch, right?

All in all, I would have to say that The Book of Eli was a good movie in the usual post-apocalyptic fashion. It was refreshing not to see the Christian stereotype, and the writers were able to be perfectly subtle on the issue, never really throwing anything in your face, which allows you to be able to watch and enjoy the movie even if you aren’t a Christian yourself (my boyfriend was the perfect guinea pig for that). There really isn’t much more I can say without spoiling the movie for you. The very end is a little cheesy, so be prepared for that, but after so many good action scenes it’s easy to forgive. Really, if you are in the mood for an action movie, if you liked Mad Max or The Road, then this should be up your alley. Did I mention that the fight scenes were really good? They are.