Review: The Book of Eli (2010)

[Tim Skirvin]

  January is the supposed to be the Time Of Bad Movies, when the
studios release the movies that, for whatever reasons, they didn't want to
release during "real" movie seasons.  I look forward to this; it's nice to
go into movies with low expectations, especially after a season of "good"
movies (and more especially after an unusually long run of movies that I
actually liked; how can I have not hated any movies since _Capitalism: A
Love Story_?  Even _Ninja Assassin_ wasn't that bad!).  And so I have to
admit that I was disappointed.  _The Book of Eli_ was well north of
watch-able, and my gripes were primarily meta-contextual.

  (One prominent exception: within the first few minutes a cat had
been killed.  Yes, this was done in order to provide context into the state
of the world and show a general moral murkiness, and it was in no way
glorified; but still, this is one of those lines that I don't like to see
crossed, and I've stayed away from movies and stopped watching television
shows for this offense in the past.  So, if you're like me, you may want to
skip this movie on general principle.)

  _The Book of Eli_ shows an especially bleak post-apocalyptic world.
Civilization has collapsed, and humanity has been reduced to squabbling
over the few remaining resources; water, especially, is somewhere between
rare and non-existent.  There are virtually no population centers left, and
those that do remain are both ruled by warlords and supplied by incredibly
scarce and remote water supplies.  Even the ammunition has been used up, for
the most part.  And in this world there is a lone traveller, journeying west
with a pack full of scavenged gear and trading supplies.

  (Mind, most of this is *told* to us rather than *shown*.  In fact,
most of that which is shown doesn't match up very well with those spoken
descriptions; but this is a standard problem with post-apocalyptic worlds.
Still, those details that *are* shown to us tend to be nicely under-stated
and meaningful: the interesting scavenged modern technologies, the concern
over cannibalism, the different attitudes towards the apocalypse between
the young and old.  I didn't sweat it too much during the movie.)

  Visually, the movie resembles _Fallout 3_.  (This is a compliment;
I've been a huge fan of the game series, and the visuals from the last game
really were spectacular).  As the lone traveller follows the ancient
interstates, he comes across ruined bridges and spies on scavengers below.
When he looks over the top of a hill, he comes across homes standing alone
in a desolate valley.  The ruined city looks to be about the same size as
any _Fallout 3_ establishment, with the main interior building looking
amazingly like the converted brothel that was the seat of slaver
"government" in Paradise Falls.  And so forth.  It was striking, and it was
appropriate.

  The acting was probably better than it had to be, if perhaps a bit
stereotype-heavy.  Denzel Washington was The Good Guy, Gary Oldman was The
Ambitious Bad Guy, and Mila Kunis was The Naive Girl; but they all offered
fairly nuanced performances, to the best of their abilities.  The characters
themselves were slightly less interesting, but really, that's to be
expected in this kind of movie.

  And the script...  well, it was really pretty good, at least until
the very ending (which is probably best not over-contemplated).  Things
flowed in a very character-driven way, with plot points not often coming
out of left field.  Questions, once asked, were generally answered.  The
effort spent at building up the atmosphere really did pay off with
something worth thinking about.  And the action scenes (which were well
done) fit into the story every time, which is no mean feat nowadays...

  I was pleasantly surprised.  I suspect that I'm not alone on that.

  ** 3/4.  Probably would have been *** except for the whole cat
thing.  

  (Oh, and those meta-contextual gripes?  Well, this is the first time
in a while that I've gone to a Friday early-evening show, and it was also
the first time in a while that I had any gripes with my fellow patrons.
Please don't tell me how fine Denzel is, ladies; and kid with the cell
phone, stop texting during the climax!  What is it with those kinds of
showings that brings out the horrible manners?)

                           - Tim Skirvin (tskirvin at killfile.org)
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