Book of Eli (2010)
Stars: Denzel Washington and Mila Kunis
Director: The Hughes Bros.
Plugs: None
The Book of Eli takes place in a post-Apocalyptic world, where Mad Max—I mean Eli (Denzel Washington)—treks across the wasteland, drawn westward by a commandment from God. Eli gets waylayed by Carnegie, the dictator of a small-town (played by Tina Turner—I mean Gary Oldman) who wants something from him: Eli carries a bible, supposedly the last bible on Earth, and Carnegie has spent years searching civilization’s rubble for a bible. (As the most common book on Earth, it’s strange he’s not able to track one down, but that’s one of the minor logical lapses in the script.) Carnegie uses his adopted daughter (Mila Kunis) to wrest away Eli’s bible, but she soon joins Eli and the pair spend much of the film running from Carnegie and his henchmen. By the time Malcolm McDowell shows up as Einstein (or at least his double), a printer living on Alcatraz Island, I had lost all patience with the film.
The Book of Eli does not just suck; it sucks spectacularly. There’s nothing like pretension to expose just how far off the mark a film falls. A B-movie that knows it’s a B-movie and doesn’t pretend it’s Citizen Kane gets some leeway; a film that pretends it’s not dog dookie topped with a pretty bow does not.
Washington is okay in the role, which mostly calls for him to look stoic and determined; Mila Kunis is positively wooden in her role, and looks like she just stepped out of a Pasadena mall instead of the desert wasteland of America. Unbelievable things happen when she shows up onscreen—and I don’t mean amazing or interesting unbelievable, but desperate screenwriter contrivance unbelievable. The directors, the Hughes Brothers, tried their best to liven up the limp script with slow-motion shots and fancy camerawork (often in washed out colors and sepia), but it’s all for naught.
The Book of Eli comes off as a third-rate Road Warrior rip-off sprinkled with a little holy water. It is far too silly, preachy, and absurd to take seriously
