What: The world has ended. In the aftermath, a man travels through a countryside full of robbers, killers and cannibals with the hope of protecting a book.


Who: The latest from the Hughes Brothers (From Hell, Dead Presidents) has the commercial and cinematic advantage of featuring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman in the leads.

Bottom Line: Just go see it now. Don't let anyone ruin the movie's twists and surprises for you. Don't talk to anyone who's seen it, and don't read reviews (though I promise to keep this one spoiler free). Just go see it. My fellow geeks, this one is one of those movies.


Review: So far in 2010 I've seen two movies in the theater: The Book Of Eli and The Road (My review of that film is here.). Both of them are movies set in a post apocalyptic American wasteland. Both of them are stories of men with precious cargo on arduous journeys. Both of them pit their heroes against killers, cannibals, thieves and crazies. And both of them revolve around some of the same themes.

But these two films could not possibly be more different. These two films are polar opposites. These two films, for all their remarkable similarities, seem to have originated in different universes. I saw The Road with high hopes, expecting to love it, and I left the theater dismayed. I saw The Book Of Eli figuring that, at best, it would be OK ... and I left the theater with that post-movie buzz you only get when you've seen something you know you and your friends will talk about for years to come.

There is so much I want to tell you about this movie, but I don't want to tell you anything about it. I don't want to ruin this movie's twists and turns. Imagine that it's 1999 and you've just seen The Sixth Sense on opening weekend. Think about how badly you'd want to tell your friends about the film, but how much you'd want them to see it knowing nothing about it so they'll get the full experience. This is that kind of thing.

Now, don't go see it expecting Ikiru or Schindler's List. Let me be clear, this is a pop movie. It's pure comic book story telling, with broad characters and a completely implausible plot. This film is sentimental and corny and some of the dialogue is pretty bad. But this thing is custom made for a certain kind of movie goer; people like me and my friends. People who are more than happy to suspend disbelief in the name of a fun, loud movie with surprising emotional impact and a few unexpected twists and turns. This is a "fanboy" movie and it'll be a Godsend for fanboy audiences.



There will be time to discuss this movie's themes and messages and all the little plot details and it's oozing nerdy goodness over the next several months. Meanwhile, with the goal of not ruining it for you, I'll give you only the bare basics:

Denzel Washington is incapable of turning in a bad performance. He's up there in the modern pantheon, with De Niro and Penn and Eastwood, and he can take a good movie up several notches toward greatness. A big part of this movie's success is because of Denzel's nearly peerless command on screen.

Gary Oldman is good here, too, as one of those lip-licking psycho villains he does so well, but has rarely done at all over the past ten years. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to see Oldman as a prancing, scene-stealing bad guy.

As the damsel in distress, Mila Kunis is a custom fit. She has the kind of saucer sized eyes that don't require her to do any actual acting, and as a comic book female lead she's more than adequate for the job at hand.


This movie isn't set in the kind of hyper-realistic post apocalypse that made The Road such a long trudge. This dystopia is more cinematic and conventional; more comparable to Mad Max or The Planet Of The Apes. After having spent two hours last week, slowly going insane with Viggo Mortensen in that other film's jet black nuclear wasteland, The Book Of Eli and it's Fallout-like user-friendly Armageddon was a welcome return to an entertaining apocalypse.

This movie is getting mixed reviews, and that's because of the movie's message. This is a film that comes down cleanly, in a very broad sense, on one side of one of those great cultural divides that separates some folks from others. I've read some of this movie's bad reviews, and it's apparent that many of those who dislike the film are really railing against this movie's greater themes. Certain kinds of people cultivate a certain kind of secular uber-coolness, and in order to maintain the prerequisite air of elite detachment, they'll almost feel required to slam this movie. Just see it for yourself and make your own call. This one is worth the ten dollar gamble on a movie ticket. Movie fans like me, who relish a good geek-out that's framed on traditional good-vs-evil archetypes, will find much to love in The Book Of Eli.


Oh, and let me be clear about one thing: This movie isn't actually based on a comic book. But it is a comic book movie, and geeks know what I mean by that, and that it's a good thing. There's a reason so much of the marketing is aimed at me and my fellow fanboys. This is our kind of thing. This movie and movies like it, more so than any actual Marvel or DC licensed product, represents the best possible effect that comic books could have had on modern film.



Related Reviews:
Denzel Washington movies
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
American Gangster (2007)


Other Critic's Reviews:
Dark Matters
The Critical Critics

Labels: adaptation, Denzel Washington, film, Gary Oldman, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon, Mila Kunis, movie review, Ray Stevenson, Tom Waits