‘The Book of Eli’(now going to be referred to as ‘Eli’) takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and follows Eli (Denzel Washington) as he’s making a pilgrimage towards the west. He is carrying, what some people feel, a sacred book. Gary Oldman’s character, Carnegie, is desperately seeking the power of this book and will stop at nothing to get to it. Mila Kunis, who plays Solara, also gets thrown into the mix when she decides that following Eli is her only way out of her seemingly miserable life.
‘Eli’ seemed very promising to me because I’m a HUGE fan of Gary Oldman. Denzel Washington isn't too bad either…okay, okay, he’s always good in any film he’s in because well, he's DENZEL! Case in point Man on Fire...
*Clears throat* Anywho, it would be an understatement to say I was more than a little excited to see Gary Oldman playing the bad guy again. Especially since he has spent a great deal of time playing characters like Sirius Black and Jim Gordon. Now before you go ballistic, these are two amazing characters and they happen to be in two of my favorite movie franchise's! (for those of you under a rock these films are Harry Potter and Christopher Nolan's Batman) Did you know it’s been 10 years since Oldman has played a villain on the big screen? This part was an excellent lead in for the roles I feel that he does best.
With these things in mind, I really liked ‘Eli’ and I’m having a hard time figuring out if it was just because of the actors. The story was pretty basic, and they never really went into detail what exactly happened to the world that they are living in. All you know is that it’s been about 30 years since apocalyptic occurrence, most people are illiterate, and for some reason Mila Kunis’ hair still looks great in this shampoo-less world….*sarcastic undertone entered here* oh and she managed to find some skinny jeans to wear…thank God.
The film had a lot of great action sequences, including Denzel kicking mucho ass. One of my favorite things about this film is that it pulled one over on me at the end. Of course I won’t tell what it is for those of you who might still want to see it. All I’ll say is that it was a pleasant surprise, mainly because I’ve become really good at predicting any “plot shocks” that may occur in a film, and I really didn’t anticipate this one.
Picture from SDCC 2009
If I were to give ‘Eli’ a rating from the letter grading scale, I would give it a B-. The story could have been a little more fleshed out (and Mila’s hair really didn’t need to look so nice) but all the actors did a great job (amazingly) making these characters believable. So if you’re looking for a good o’ fashion post-apocalyptic film with some incredible actors then go see ‘The Postman’...( LOL…it hurts!!) but seriously ‘The Book of Eli” wasn't half bad and I would recommend it if you have a free Sunday afternoon.
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