Grade: D
The Book of Eli, Hollywood's latest post-apocalyptic movie, is a pulpy, barely recognizable Christian allegory that mixes Biblical storytelling with a Steven Seagal movie.
Even its star, the great Denzel Washington (Eli, The Taking of Pelham 123), can't redeem the movie from its gratuitous nature and hypocritical goals. His character may be able to save the world, but his acting can't save this.
For a movie that tries to establish a traditional good versus evil morality, it's dampened by the fact that nothing but evil occurs right up to the very end. The directors, the Hughes brothers, seem to believe that slamming someone's head on a table or chopping off someone's arm is justifiable as long as it's done for 'good.' If it's done with stunning special effects, even better.
Eli is a mysterious loner who wanders across an America that was totally destroyed 30 years earlier. He carries with him a bag full of basic supplies, a sawed-off shotgun that everyone assumes isn't loaded, and a specially designed machete. He also carries a book that he believes will save the world.
He encounters a small town ruled by a heinous warlord, Carnegie (Gary Oldman, Planet 51), and his considerably larger henchmen. Carnegie confronts Eli and tries to take the book. However, thanks to Eli's lethal Bruce Lee-like skills, he evades Carnegie and spends the bulk of the movie trying to safeguard the book.
The book, it is revealed, is the King James Bible. According to Eli, every copy of the Bible was destroyed after the apocalypse because it apparently caused the war. Eli has the only known copy and will do anything to guard it.
Behind the special effects and the horrific violence, the movie wants us to think that it has a powerful message. It tells viewers of the triumph of good over evil, the importance of the written word, and the power of faith. Yet ironically, the audience would need blind faith to accept any of these morals as presented by the movie. It would make the UB Freethinkers' heads spin.
The problem with The Book of Eli is that it uses religion improperly. It assumes that it's okay to kill and maim in the name of God. Eli doesn't hesitate in brutally murdering a local thug or amputating a limb or two. Although he eventually says he feels sorry for it, he does so in the end in one sentence, almost as a passing thought.
When Eli talks about the love and redemption of the Bible – a book he allows no one to read, by the way – his words fall on deaf ears. What's the use of saying a kind word or being polite when Eli spends most of the movie behaving like Goliath?
The Biblical figure of Elijah is evoked in name but nothing else. He was a prophet who ascended into heaven in chariots of fire. He is supposed to be the harbinger of the Second Coming, and was a major figure in the Transfiguration of Jesus.
If the movie were to be taken more seriously, then it should be considered tragic that no one would care to actually read the Bible – and find that out – after seeing this movie. It holds the book high but makes no effort to explain why it's important.
The film mistakes action for substance, and although it isn't exactly sacrilegious, it seems to use the Bible, as well as everything else, as a special effect and not as part of the story.
The Book of Eli, unfortunately, is a violent and wacked-out love song for the Bible. It's painful to say, but it's the greatest story ever butchered.
E-mail: arts@ubspectrum.com
The world according to Eli
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