"The Book of Eli" - The Unofficial "Fallout" Movie with a Crazy Twist

This is another movie from that YouTube video about “critically hated movies that are actually awesome” (watch it here). When this movie showed up on the list, I was surprised. I didn’t remember The Book of Eli being hated. But after checking Rotten Tomatoes and seeing it at 49%, I realized that this divided critics. This is the first time I’ve revisited a movie I’ve already reviewed for this site, so it was interesting to see what I had to say, because I honestly had no idea what I wrote (this came out eight and a half year ago). I do remember enjoying it very much; I did buy it, after all.

You Should Only Read Reviews After You've Written Your Own. Even Then, It Might Not Be a Good Idea.

I remember The Book of Eli having a unique, nearly black and white look for a scorched Earth apocalypse and featuring some impressive, gory action sequences. (From here on out there will be major SPOILERS.) I also remember it for being that movie that reveals Denzel Washington has been blind the entire movie. It’s a crazy twist, but upon rewatching it holds up, for the most part. Some critics hated it; A. O. Scott called it “beyond absurd.” So that’s one reason why critics hated it. But I still didn’t understand the hatred or rather, the indifference of half of the critics.

The movie is very Christian, as the titular book is possibly the last Bible in existence. Was that why? Christian movies typically get destroyed by critics. Looking at a few negative reviews, that’s not the case exactly. Many claim the movie set out to have a powerful message but fell flat. They don’t say how exactly it fell flat, but I’m assuming since it was about the importance of religion they felt that it never delivered on the idea that the Bible can save humanity. I don’t think the end result of mass producing the Bible was the point. It was more about faith and struggling through a difficult journey in a destroyed world. But hey, different strokes and all that.

The other problem was the setting. Critics were dealing with apocalypse fatigue as The Road had been released a few months prior. A lot of critics mentioned how it provided nothing new to the tired genre. I thought it had an interesting look for the end of the world. More importantly, it felt like a fully realized world. Of course there’s going to be some similarities to other films, but I found it to be unique enough.

Many critics found it too serious and just a slog to get through. I don’t get this at all. There is a lot of action, and since most of it is filmed in long takes, you can actually tell what’s going on. And sure, there are a few too many slow motion moments that attempt to add emotional depth (the scene when Mila Kunis breaks down after nearly being raped, the moment when Denzel gets shot which seems to last five minutes), but I would hardly call that a slog. Another common complaint was that the film lacked humor. First off, just how funny is the apocalypse supposed to be? Still, there are quite a few moments of humor. For instance, the entire sequence with the cannibals (played to great comic effect by Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour) was played for laughs.

I hate reading reviews (I know, the irony). For one thing, they make me question my own opinion about the film. I try to avoid them until after I’ve written my own review (this is actually the first time I read any reviews for this movie). Also, I get annoyed with a lot critics who offer plenty of complaints with no examples to back to them up, and they spend two thirds of the review just summarizing the film (Ed Koch’s review for The Atlantic was particularly annoying). I also hate reading my own reviews. But if I’m going to complain about other reviews, I should do the same with my original review.

Looking back, I made the same comparisons to The Road. I guess it was fresh in everyone’s memory, but I liked both films. Overall, I stand by my original review, though there are a few cringe-worthy elements. I called the action worthy of Michael Bay, and this was meant in a positive manner. To be fair, this was before he turned completely into the Transformers “what the fuck is going on?” action. I was referring to the scene in Bad Boys II where the camera travels through a house (through bullet holes and walls and whatnot), which happens during the house assault in The Book of Eli. Still, I should have compared it to Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, especially since the two movies are similar beyond the style of action.

I use “though” way too much. I still do. I should really consult a thesaurus. Or perhaps I should stop making a point, only to give an example that disproves that point the very next sentence. I’ll probably just keep overusing “though,” though.

I’m more negative than I remembered. My memory of The Book of Eli was that it was pretty awesome. This was only my second year of reviewing movies, though. I probably thought that showering a movie with praise was amateurish. I do recall feeling like I had to point out something weak about a film even if I loved it. I still do that, but to a lesser degree.

Overall, I stand by my original review. I wish I didn’t try so hard to find weaknesses in a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, but oh well.

That Crazy Twist...

I didn’t revisit this movie just to compare reviews. I wanted to examine that blind twist in a bit more detail. I remember figuring out the twist before the reveal, but not much before. Watching it again, it should be obvious rather quickly, and perhaps it is to most people. There are plenty of clues throughout: he bumps into stuff in the first house he checks out, he has no reaction to a dead body and needs to feel the body’s feet to tell if there are shoes, he touches everything, he tells the bandit crew he can smell them from a mile away, he kicks the staircase at the cannibal house to tell where it is and uses his shotgun to find the door, and he claims he walks by faith, not by sight.

There is one big slip up with the blind twist. No, it’s not the fact that he can fight like a Jedi (I think we’re supposed to chalk that, and other unbelievable moments, up to God looking out for him. It’s the wetnap he trades Tom Waits for a battery charge. He mentions that it’s from KFC. Unless the wetnap had braille on it (I’ve never come across a wetnap like that), how could he possibly know where it was from. Not enough to ruin it for me, but it did bother me. Someone should have caught that.

I can see why people were annoyed with the twist, and while God watching over him may not be entirely clear, I believe that is the case. I believe it because after Gary Oldman shoots him, he talks so much about how God isn’t really protecting him after all.

The Unofficial Fallout Movie

Finally, the YouTube video mentions that this is as close to a Fallout movie as we are going to get. I hadn’t played Fallout when this came out, but now I love the franchise, and the video is exactly right. This movie is basically a prolonged quest in a Fallout game. Hell, there’s even a A Boy and His Dog poster in the movie, and that apocalyptic film is a well-known inspiration for Fallout. It’s possible this film is heavily influenced by the videogame series, and I think it’s better for it. In fact, watching it with that in mind made it more enjoyable for me. I noted all the similarities: apocalyptic setting (obviously), quiet, lone hero who can carry a lot of weapons and is proficient with all of them, can easily take out large groups of random bandits by himself, ends up traveling with a companion, is on a lengthy quest, stops by a town under the control of one man, and so on. If you’re a Fallout fan, watch this again with the series in mind.

I’m definitely glad I own this movie, and it’s the rare movie that ended up being very interesting to re-watch. Not just to look for blindness clues, but also to compare it to an awesome videogame franchise.

Random Thoughts

I don’t understand why the Hughes Brothers went separate ways after this. It didn’t set any box office records or anything, but it did okay.

I'm no fan of cats, so the beginning is fine with me. Adding insult to death by feeding a piece to a mouse. And critics said this was humorless!

Wetnaps for a battery charge. Strange transaction.

Most of the product placement for the film is covered by all the sunglasses that are all in great shape for the apocalypse. But there’s an odd Motorola placement when Oldman uses a megaphone. It just felt strange that he pulls up this megaphone prominently displaying a Motorola logo. I didn’t even know they made megaphones...hey, the placement worked!

On Oldman’s burn list: Oprah magazine, The Da Vinci Code, and The Diary of Anne Frank. What a monster, The Da Vinci Code is a fun read.

Two cat related events in first half hour...odd.

Really like the main theme. Atticus Ross’s first film score.

So they burned almost every Bible after the war. Okay. But everyone forgot Christianity? That's a bit much. I guess I can accept it for the purpose of the story, but it seems like it would need to be many more years after the war for this to have happened, not just thirty or so.

Overall, I like the idea of using the Bible for hope vs. control. Oldman calls it a weapon.

I get Oldman’s motivation is control and expanding beyond a single town, but why? I always wonder about that when a villain’s goal is simply power. I guess controlling more people would allow him to live better. I don't know. I guess there are plenty of real people who just want power…

How did Solara get out of the water shack?

Maybe the person who wasn't shot in the stomach should have been rowing the boat to Alcatraz the whole time…

Near the end in the row boat felt a bit too similar to Children of Men.

Great moustache, Malcolm McDowell!

Oldman telling Waits to be careful picking the lock of a book. What's it going to do, blow up?

Denzel’s been walking for thirty years. I looked it up. If he found the Bible in Bangor, Maine, that trip would be a little over 3,300 miles. If he walked just one mile a day, that should take over nine years. Sure, he’s blind, but he must have spent years doing a crazy zig-zag across America. Once again, this is all explained away by fate and whatnot. He was supposed to be where he was when he was so he could meet Solara so she could help him and be saved herself. But still, thirty years?!

"Unstoppable"

Unstoppable - Directed by Tony Scott, written by Mark Bomback, starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson, Lew Temple, and Kevin Dunn - Rated PG-13

Unstoppable features the most ridiculous out of control cinematic train since Highlander II: The Quickening.

Director Tony Scott and Denzel Washington must have really loved playing with train sets in their youth. Unstoppable marks their second film in two years that deals with transportation on tracks. I enjoyed last year’s remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, even though I felt that it was over-directed by Scott. When I heard about Unstoppable it seemed almost like a joke. Why would these guys make another movie about trains so close together? I’m glad they made another train movie, though, because Unstoppable is totally decent and coupled with Pelham it makes for an unlikely, slightly above average double feature.

Unstoppable is based on the “true” story of a runaway train loaded with hazardous chemicals in Ohio in which no one was hurt. In the film, which takes place in Pennsylvania, the drama is ramped up considerably. Not only is the train moving at higher speeds than the real train (upwards of 70 MPH in the film compared to 46-47 MPH in reality), but there is also a train of school children on the tracks, and the train is heading into a highly residential area. Add some police cars chasing alongside of it and even throw in some gunfire (there is real news footage of a deputy actually trying to shoot the fuel tank of the train) and you have yourself a movie. I’m not being sarcastic at all. I dug the “what else could go wrong?” plot.

What makes the film work, though, is Scott’s overbearing direction. This is a loud movie and I mean that in the best way. Scott places the viewer on the tracks and it gets intense. He also does a good job of making everything seem much more frantic than it really is; the train is on tracks, you know, and 70 MPH isn’t that insane of a speed. But I did get a feeling of urgency throughout and the film never slows down or becomes boring. With that said, I did feel like Scott used too many extremely similar shots to the point that I thought he was just reusing footage after awhile. And he does have to throw in the occasional pointless camera swing that has become his annoying trademark, but it is toned down in this film.

Scott has the train sensation down, but you still need to care about the people on the tracks. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine (Star Trek) are the two unlikely heroes who take it upon themselves to run the train down in reverse and try to stop it. Of course, Washington is fine. He’s not doing anything new, but that’s okay. I still enjoy his work even though he’s getting dangerously close to becoming a caricature now that he’s a regular target on “Saturday Night Live.” After a lampooning on “SNL” I can’t look at Mark Wahlberg without laughing; I hope the same doesn’t happen with Washington.

Pine handles himself well opposite Washington as the young whippersnapper to Washington’s disillusioned veteran. Their relationship is a bit uneven in the early moments of the film, moving too quickly back and forth from buddy-buddy to angry rivals, but by the end, they had earned a nice scene in which they talk about Pine’s marital status while speeding backwards in a train. The absurdity of the moment worked for me.

The rest of the cast is rounded out well. T. J. Miller and Ethan Suplee are amusing as the goofy rail workers who allow the train to get away. Rosario Dawson and Kevin Corrigan have some decent scenes from the command post. Kevin Dunn gets to slime up the screen as the greedy company man. My favorite performance, however, comes from Lew Temple as Ned, the overzealous, cowboy rail worker who shows up from time to time to yell at people. He really added some much needed humor to the film.

Speaking of humor, this film ends very strangely. Not to ruin anything, but for the first 95 minutes this is a relatively serious film, but the last five minutes are almost complete comedy. There’s even a cheesy montage that lets us know what happened to all of the characters that is clearly trying to evoke some laughs. It seemed out of place to me. Maybe the point was that after watching a loud train barrel down a track for nearly two hours, the audience was entitled to relax and laugh a little. It didn’t really work for me, though.

So is Unstoppable as ridiculous as the previews lead you to believe? Yes, actually it’s even more whacky than you may have thought. But if you just go with it, it ends up being an enjoyable time. I can’t lie, though; I hope Denzel Washington and Tony Scott have gotten trains out of their system. I’m not sure I can handle a trilogy.

"The Book of Eli"

The Book of Eli - Directed by The Hughes Brothers, starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, and Mila Kunis - Rated R


The Evil Kurgan loves the apocalypse.


It seems that Hollywood is obsessed with the apocalypse these days. Over the past year I’ve seen Knowing, Terminator: Salvation, The Road, Zombieland, 2012, and now The Book of Eli. Let’s face it, people want to see what might happen if the world ends. Would we turn to cannibalism? Would we loot and pillage? Would we lose our humanity? These questions have been covered by most of these films, but, surprisingly, religion has taken a backseat in the Hollywood apocalypse. To be fair, Knowing had a religious aspect to it, but it was slightly open to interpretation.

The trend of ignoring religion during the end times has changed with The Book of Eli. If you’ve seen the previews, you know that the eponymous book is in fact the Holy Bible. In the film, a war tore a hole in the sky and brought on a gray world (the film nearly looks black and white). The Bible was blamed for this war and all copies of the book were burned. Well, almost all of them. Eli (Denzel Washington) has the last copy and he’s trying to take it west.

Eli walks a scorched earth alone. The road is populated with cannibals, though, waiting to ambush lone walkers. But Eli gets by okay. He’s insanely deadly with a bow and arrow and all manner of guns, but he is an artist with his razor sharp machete. Needless to say, The Book of Eli has a number of brutal action scenes. The action isn’t groundbreaking or anything, but it is entertaining. One shootout in particular is Michael Bay-worthy. The action is vital to the film because the story does start to drag a bit when Eli makes his way to town.

In the town, Eli comes across the ruthless Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie runs the town with an iron fist (he controls the precious water supply) and he uses his power to send out road crews to search for the last copy of the Bible, in hopes of using it for ill gains, of course. This is where Eli meets Solara (Mila Kunis) who insists on tagging along with Eli.

Solara is meant to be an important character and she is supposed to represent a vital theme in regards to the Bible and how it tells you to lead your life. But I thought this fell flat a bit. I think the film is strong enough with only Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman going head to head.
The flaws in Solara’s character are due to writing, not acting. Kunis does an okay job in the film. She just pales in comparison to heavyweights like Washington and Oldman. Washington has become one of the most dependable actors in Hollywood. You know you’re going to see at least a decent movie if he’s involved. His screen presence is unmatched. Oldman is great as usual, though I would have liked to see more eccentricities in his character. Carnegie, as a character, is kind of plain, but Oldman punches it up a bit. The supporting players aren’t bad in this film, either. Ray Stevenson makes for a decent second-in-command. And Tom Waits and Michael Gambon lighten the mood of the film here and there.

The lightening of the mood is a very refreshing aspect of the film. Most apocalyptic films are deadly serious, which is natural, but movies are meant to be entertaining for the most part and it’s nice to laugh occasionally, even in the face of disaster. Don’t get me wrong, though, The Book of Eli is not a comedy. It just has a couple of moments that provide a laugh or two.

The comedy and the religion are refreshing aspects of the film, but the style of the film isn’t exactly original. I can’t help but compare it to The Road. Both films offer a scorched earth as a setting and the opening scenes of Eli walking alone could almost be confused with footage from that other apocalyptic film. But your options are a bit limited when it comes to the end of the world. There’s bound to be some overlap. It may not be the freshest look in film, but it does look great and the Hughes Brothers (the directing duo) create some beautiful shots that match up to the powerful score.

The Book of Eli offers some elements that I found amusing in the crowded post-apocalyptic genre. First off, it’s basically a western. You have shootouts in the middle of town, saloons populated with grungy highwaymen, and even a shot or two that would fit in perfectly in an old Clint Eastwood western. Second, everyone gets to wear sunglasses, and it’s nice to see that people still like to look cool after the end of the world. To be fair, though, the sunglasses are important since the sun is particularly blinding after the war. Finally, the film has an interesting take on the cannibal issue. According to this film, if you eat too much human meat, you get the shakes and basically turn into a junkie. I thought it was interesting to add a physical reason to avoid cannibalism in addition to the moral complications.

The story of this film really worked for me. I was honestly interested throughout the film. The action kept things exciting, but I wasn’t sitting there waiting for the next action scene. First time screenwriter Gary Whitta has created an interesting debut; it’s not perfect or anything (as I said earlier, Solara’s character needed some work), but it should keep your attention, which is more than you can say for a lot of films these days. Some people might be turned away from the Christian focus of the film, though. The film makes the Bible the only book that matters, not the Torah, the Koran, the Talmud, etc. That might rub non-Christians the wrong way, but I think the film offers enough for people to get past that. For instance, there is a plot element that will make you want to watch the film at least one more time no matter what your religious affiliation is. The writing overcomes any controversial elements and the direction makes it interesting.

The Book of Eli isn’t a groundbreaking post-apocalyptic film, but it is certainly a worthy addition, and an entertaining one at that. It might even make you think a bit and you’ll certainly have plenty to talk about once it’s over, and that alone makes it worth watching.