The Book of Eli Movie Review

This guest post comes from Michael, a contributing editor of the Dough Roller, a personal finance and investing blog, and Credit Card Offers IQ, a credit card review site.

If you’ve been going to the movies lately, then you know that there hasn’t been a shortage of apocalyptic themed films.  After seeing “Knowing” and “2012”, I was tired and disappointed that the end of the world couldn’t be done in a way which I found enjoyable to watch.  Both of those movies showed worldwide destruction, as it happened, and in the end offered hope for the rebuilding of humanity.  However, for some strange reason, I was looking forward to The Book of Eli, as this movie had what the others lacked … an extremely solid cast.  No offense to Johnny C or Nicky C of course.

Denzel Washington continues to put forth excellent cinematic appearances and casting him for the lead role in The Book of Eli was the first step in the right direction.  The movie opens with the world already in ruins and a single man (Denzel), who goes unnamed at the time, hunting for food to survive.  As the story progresses you learn that the United States is a vast wasteland, emptied by a war to trump all wars.

It isn’t until a good half hour into the movie that you come across one of the other few main characters, Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman, who also has lit up the big screen in recent roles.  Carnegie runs the town that our unnamed hero enters and after his cronies return from looking for loot, you learn that the one possession Carnegie is after is a King James Bible.  The reason is quite ingenious as he plans to use religion to further expand his reign as ruler, which history has shown is quite effective.

The third and final main character named Solara, played by Mila Kunis, accidentally unveils that Denzel’s character is named Eli as she rummages through his backpack to find his name written inside.  Acting as the annoying, innocent, “wants more out of life” daughter of Carnegie’s wife, Solara decides to help Eli protect his Bible and deliver it west, where God said it should go.

Once the plot is developed, the remainder of the film is spent showing you a few action and dramatic scenes, which includes an off the wall, ironic plot twist in the end.  I feel as if the writing and screenplay lacks what could make this film outstanding and it felt like it was dragging along at certain points.  Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman turn in fantastic performances and simply watching the two of them battle it out is enough for me to want to see this movie again.

If you’re the non-religious type, then this may not be the best movie for you as “blind faith” is actually the glue that holds this movie together. I was actually surprised that such a slow moving movie could hold my attention as it did and through it’s impressive action and demolition scenes, it’s intriguing plot and it’s incredible acting, I would definitely recommend spending $10 and going out to see this flick.