Movie Review: The Book of Eli
I have been searching long and hard for an “A+” blockbuster movie with religious themes. Tragically, after watching The Book of Eli, I have to say I am now 0 for 4. It’s especially frustrating because I love Denzel Washington and I remember seeing the trailer for this a decade ago and thinking it looked badass. However after sitting through its near two hour runtime of bleak post-apocalytpic drama I can now understand its low critic and viewer scores on Rotten Tomatoes and why the property hasn’t been revisited. The Book of Eli is the very definition of ‘great concept, weak execution.’
So first of all: Spoiler alert. The story follows the titular Eli played by Denzel Washington as he journeys west across an America turned into a wasteland by a nuclear war. Eli carries with him the only known remaining copy of The Bible, books apparently having been deliberately destroyed during and after the war. Eli stops in a settlement ruled by a man named Carnegie (played admirably by Gary Oldman) who has long been searching for the Bible to use it as a means to strengthen his rule. Eli and Carnegie do not see eye to eye however, leading to some wild fight scenes as it turns out that Eli is also an untouchable super ninja in both melee and firearm combat.
Eli is eventually joined by Solara (Mila Kunis) the daughter of Carnegie. He explains that a voice in his head told him to journey west. This journey to deliver the Bible to a safe haven that will properly preserve and cherish the book ultimately costs him his life. However two big twists at the end undercut that sacrifice. Carnegie steals the book from Eli and he discovers he cannot read it because it is in braille; Eli it turns out is blind. Secondly, Eli reveals that actually he has memorized the entire Bible, and he recites it to the archiving group at the end before dying.
There are a lot of problems with this. The first and biggest is that none of Eli’s feats are properly set up for the payoff to have meaning. Why is he such an untouchable fighter? It’s never explained, all we get is “he wandered around for 30 years.” Lots of people wander and don’t become John Wick. How is he able to see perfectly, even make eye contact and shoot people far away with one hand while blind? This is especially annoying because the movie has other blind characters who actually move and act believably. The reveal at the end with Eli just makes no sense. Finally, how in the **** did he memorize the entire ******* Bible? He says he “read it every day.” Well **** man, so do I. I couldn’t recite a single chapter from memory if you paid me. Reciting the entire book is an amazing feat that you have to build properly for it to work. (Also, minor annoyance: It’s a King James Bible, meaning he didn’t even preserve the entire Bible…)
You could hand-wave all of this away by just saying, “it’s a miracle!” or whatever. I have seen that argument online. This is weak sauce though. If Eli’s abilities are divinely inspired then it destroys all sense of tension and eliminates the gravity of character choices. What’s more you have to evidence it somehow — build it up, give the audience some understanding. Magic and miracles need some sort of structure to get the audience to suspend disbelief. The Book of Eli fails hard here by not even trying to get us properly invested. Stuff just happens because of course it does.
What’s more, the movie just isn’t terribly well-executed. The soundtrack was mediocre and the directing uninspired. The action scenes were okay but have not aged well. The visual design of the setting was decent. I liked the level of detail in the props and architecture in creating a gritty post-apocalyptic world. However the camerawork and script don’t do a great job of leveraging that, particularly in the second half where we should be getting a bigger view of the road and the journey.
The final portion, wherein Solara just drives Eli to San Francisco after he gets shot, is very rushed. Eli killed dozens of Carnegie’s men. Why did Carnegie just shoot him once in the stomach instead of making sure he was dead? How did Eli survive long enough to be driven all the way to San Francisco and then recite the entire Bible after being gut shot? Why is it Solara, who was nearly raped and murdered after being out on her own in the wasteland for five minutes, ends the film by journeying out on her own into the wasteland to “save her mother”? With what resources and skills will she accomplish this given that it has been shown that Carnegie’s town is in the midst of a violent uproar?
If it seems like I am being overly harsh remember that I really really wanted to like this movie. Still, I do really appreciate the film’s themes and concept. I just wish it had invested more in developing them. For example, Carnegie is right when he states that the Bible will “give him the words to rule” as it did in the past. He argues, rightly, that the Bible is not meant to be locked away and preserved but rather shared. This dichotomy needed more development to help motivate Eli’s conflict with Carnegie by showing the proper Christian alternative to Carnegie’s lust for power.
This really could have been so much better given the strong cast and concept. Sigh…
…Still worth a watch if you are a Denzel fan.
Verdict: C+
