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Friday, January 15, 2010
Film / Film Reviews / News The Book of Eli: See it on faith
Rating: ***
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 3:31 PM
THE BOOK OF ELI
*** (out of four)
DIRECTED BY The Hughes Brothers
STARS Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman
Talk about apocalypse now. If there's one positive thing to be said about the sudden glut of end-of-the-world tales, it's that the batting average in terms of quality has been on the winning side. Certainly, 2012 was a stinker, but The Road, Zombieland, Terminator Salvation and now The Book of Eli have all been compelling watches, each for different reasons.
In the case of The Book of Eli, the first film directed by The Hughes Brothers since 2001's criminally underrated Johnny-Depp-meets-Jack-the-Ripper movie From Hell, it's the potent religious slant that makes it intriguing. Thirty years after a war that wiped out most of the world's population, only one Bible remains in existence. The righteous Eli (Denzel Washington) owns it, planning to use it for good; the despicable Carnegie (Gary Oldman) wants it, planning to use it to forward his own insidious agenda (no mention in Gary Whitta's script as to whether Carnegie is related to Pat Robertson).
Admittedly, the spiritual stuff often takes a back seat to sequences of Eli slicing and dicing his way through hordes of sinners. But Washington provides the proper amount of gravitas to his role, and the surprise ending almost matches the denouement of The Sixth Sense as an audience grabber.
Speaking of...
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
I thoroughly enjoyed this thought provoking movie. There's been alot of "hateful" reviews on this, all because it touches on religion. I think this movie has a much better message than District 9 (the worst movie I ever watched) which so many touted as the best movie of the year. In that particular movie, the message was lost amid the blood and gore and grossness of the movie, not counting poor acting and poor filming. But in Book of Eli, the thought provoking message is there, and the ending leaves one with a sense of WOW.
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An action fan (what male isn't?) who actually worked at Silver Pictures where this script was sitting on the shelf in building 90 on the Warner Lot since 2000, I was highly surprised to see it get made...and get made well by the Hughes Bros. I have since left the film industry behind, the lack of sincerity and good projects a good part of that equation...but am heartened for the future that a film such as this could get made. WELL DONE DENZEL AND WELL DONE HUGHES BROS. THIS IS A POST-APOCALYPTIC, ACTION-DRAMA BUT NOT UNDER-12 FRIENDLY.
Just saw The Book of Eli today and will definitely see it again this week. Ignore the critics. This movie will be successful by word of mouth. This is a movie for every believer. Believer in what you say? You decide. It's all about Faith, not religion. Religion is what Carnegie was going to use to control people. Faith is what guided Eli with making sure that the word continued to live. Some fundamentalists might take exception, but I liked how the bible was placed next to the Quran and how Eli's disciple Solaris (can we say Solar, Sun, Light??) will carry the Faith/Word back with her just as the overlooked women in the bible who first carried the story of Christ after the Resurrection. She will shine the truth. I will see this again and would love to take the young people from my church and develop a bible study. Did that with I Am Legend which had a huge parallel at the end to The Book of Eli. Peace.
This was the most awful, hideous movie I have ever seen. I have now found something that outranks Battlefield Earth as the worst movie ever made.
To Lisa: I just saw the movie today and I don't know how you could like that the Bible was placed next to the Qur'an. The Torah was also placed next to the Bible, but you see, it's more than that. It's saying that only the Bible could save the world from all the chaos and the Qur'an and Torah could not do the same because both books were in existence but could not save people from the chaos. So, in my view, I did not like that. It was very subtle how they put that scene in at the end but I'm sure it wasn't done by mistake.
Erica, you missed the point. never in the movie did it say that the book will save the world. you got that impression because the story was told from a christian's point of view. but the movie's message was clear in the ending: it was faith in LITERACY and CULTURE that would save the world. eli could have been replaced with a muslim or jew and the message would have been the same.
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