17 January 2010

The Book of Eli (2010)

Part two of our hopping experience, it was either this, Daybreakers, or Avatar again. Despite being entertaining most of the way through, I think we would have gladly traded in both Lovely Bones and Book of Eli for another Avatar viewing. Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, and Gary Oldman are appealing and fit their roles nicely (although Kunis can't quite pull off bad ass and really needs to find her non-romantic lead niche fast to secure her future). The bleak post-apocalyptic world is nicely shot, if a bit cliche, and there's good scenes sprinkled throughout, as well as an encompassing sense of atmosphere and mystery. It's always fun watching Denzel do Denzel right?

So the movie heads in a nice direction until the last twenty minutes and from there it just baffles you. I won't discuss any spoilers here but you'll be Googling after the movie, I'm sure of it. There's a bit of discussion about faith and religion and bringing people together and I'm sure there's a really great allegory to modern times fit in around the fighting and action scenes, but overall the Book of Eli is pretty much just good as movie hopping fodder. You could go deeper with it but I'll take a pass. I am curious how the conservative Christian world takes it though, I can't imagine a lot of support on that front.