The Book of Eli: Slick Style with Rough Substance
Somewhere out there, there is a snack shack waiting for me.
Rating: 4 out of 10
One type of movies has recently been building in the nationwide queue, Apocalypse films. We stared in wide-eyed wonder at the destruction imagined in 2012, felt the weight of despair in the bleak future of The Road and even the magical CGI-fueled paradise of Avatar can be classified as apocalyptic since that was the reason for the human expansion to Pandora. This week we bear witness to a little twist, a holy light in the gray darkness of the cold and dusty future, a film that suggests in the aftermath of what is to come you can only truly survive by pure and unadulterated faith. Nothing like a good dose of God to add spice to the end of the world.
The Book of Eli is a moral fable about a man, most commonly referred to as “The Walker”, who sets out on a journey west to find the one and only safe harbor left in the world for the precious book he is carrying. He crosses paths with the worst and the best (but mostly the worst) of what humanity has become in the wake of some type of nuclear holocaust. The extent of his survival skills is impressive, but it pales in comparison to his determination and resolve to reach the destination told to him only a voice in his head. The road gets rougher as he passes through a town where the man in charge knows all too well the power of the book he is carrying and decides to claim it for his own.
Let’s start out with the nice things first, cause that is just the polite thing to do. As you can see from the picture above, there was a clear choice in visual tone to bring about this monochromatic, muted color palette to the world after the war. There was some incredibly stark imagery and compelling wide shots of our main traveler trekking across sheer emptiness and ruined wastelands. I was quietly pleased with that portion of the film, and only that portion, until I was reminded by the ending credits that this cross between Mad Max and The Road was directed by Albert and Allen Hughes, otherwise known as The Hughes Brothers. Looking back at their last film, From Hell, I suddenly put together all the pieces. The Book of Eli succeeded and suffered in the exact same way.
The Hughes Brothers have developed a style of powerful visuals and interesting color schemes, but they seem to forget about the rest of the recipe. The story lingers on in a menacingly slow fashion, broken up by frantic acts of violence, but a real ebb and flow is never truly achieved. Also, I will hold back all inclinations to what the third act twist is, but just know it left me extremely disappointed. I stand by the idea that films win or lose their audiences in the last five minutes and I was not only lost, but banging my head against the wall in order to develop short term amnesia. There were a good handful of ways the story could have ended, but they went with honestly the worst of the bunch.
In terms of acting, I actually thought Denzel Washington had a few really impressive scenes and it was nice to see him a little bit outside of the cocky, tough guy role that he was pigeonholed into over the last decade (like Man on Fire, Inside Man and his oscar-winning turn in Training Day.) Mila Kunis also stepped up for most of the film, yet I lost her when she started to become the rough and tumble chick again. She has a self-assuredness and confidence to her which works really well, but once she starts packing heat and sliding into some femme fatale position (ala Max Payne) she ends up a caricature instead of a character. Lastly there is Gary Oldman, who really has been playing parts like this for years. It’s not his best work by far, but even with that said, he still commands attention when on screen. His performance ended up making me imagine he was playing his same character from Leon, just many, many years older.
The End of the Page Recommendation: Honestly, I love religiously themed movies, especially if someone involved is carrying a crazy sharp machete, but this felt heavy-handed and preachy. A vain attempt was made at the end to balance that out, but it failed to remove the weight left by the previous hours. If you can get a copy of the actual 35mm film, find some of the really pretty shots, blow them up into posters and just be happy with that.
Tags: 2012, action, albert hughes, allen hughes, apocalypse, avatar, bible, denzel washington, editorial, end of the world, from hell, gary oldman, inside man, leon, mad max, man on fire, max payne, mila kunis, moral fable, movie, opinion, pandora, ray stevenson, review, the book of eli, the hughes brothers, the road, training day, writing
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