Movie Review: The Book of Eli

Hollywood, you can stop making movies about the apocalypse now.

In 2009 alone, John Cusack saw the world destroyed in 2012 while Nic Cage witnessed the end of days in Knowing. Machines took over in Terminator: Salvation and 9. Woody Harrelson fought the zombicalypse in Zombieland. Viggo Mortensen survived cold, hunger, and cannibals after it all went down in The Road. Add in the utter horror of the Sandra Bullock stinker "All About Steve," and you've truly got the end of civilization. 

And now there's "The Book of Eli" to round things out.

Here the post-apocalyptic world is a dirty blend of bad teeth, hair in the style of Medieval peasants, deprivation, and yet inexplicable access to motorcycles and armored trucks with fuel. Ditto high caliber machine guns and rocket launchers. Which is a real head-scratcher. Combs, after all, don't necessarily require the machinery of Western Civilization to produce. Gasoline does. As do rockets.

Traveling through this world is brutish, with bandits on every side and water hard to find. Nonetheless, Eli (Denzel Washington) walks a dry and dusty road through these poorly styled remnants of humanity, carrying a leather-bound book. No, it's not a book on hygiene. Turns out the book is the Bible and it's the last copy left on earth.

I don't know how they know that with no government, computers, telephones, or communication of any kind. They just do.

Carnegie (Gary Oldman) runs the town along the lines of a fat cat villain in an old Western. He's got a team of thugs, a pretty woman he holds captive, and a thirst for power. He wants that Book so he can use it to control people.

Eli teams up with Solara (Mila Kunis), the daughter of Carnegie's woman, to travel West, where they hope the Book will be better received. Carnegie, of course, isn't about to let it go so easily.

The fun of this film is in sitting back and not taking it too seriously. Washington's Eli is a blend of Jackie Chan and John Wayne. He can slice off a hand quicker than you can say "cowboy ninja." Eight people coming at him, one with a chainsaw (that, again, is fully fueled)? No problem. He's got a sharp knife and he knows how to use it.

A showdown at the home of a gun-hoarding, tea-serving elderly couple is especially fun.

 Unfortunately, parts of this film want to be taken very seriously indeed. Eli's faith is treated with great respect, his mission to take the Bible west (to San Francisco, of all places), is a sacred mission.

While it's nice to have a film that respects faith, even endorses faith, it's a bit jarring to suddenly see Mad Max give a lesson on prayer. It's a question of tone. Either the film is a blood-spurting knock-em, sock-em or it's a religious treatise. It's hard to reconcile the two.

Still, I found the film enjoyable in a goofy, fluffy kind of way. Washington manages to infuse his character with some gravitas. Rest assured, people who do believe the Bible to be powerful and sacred will not feel mistreated by the film.

Just don't ask too many questions about where the gasoline came from.