Everybody s talking about what happens after the apocalypse these days.  The Book of Eli  is sort of
the boiling point of this science-fiction concept, a combination of last year s  The Road  and
George Miller s  The Road Warrior.  America is a post-apocalyptic wasteland and Denzel Washington
is
the only self-sufficient badass. So originality is not exactly  Eli s  calling card, but it clearly
establishes its ruinous world and the Hughes brothers   From Hell   take good care of its
characters
while supplying top-notch action.
Washington stars as our stolid protagonist, Eli, journeying westward with his canteen, a large
machete, a couple guns and a special leather-bound book. He lives on an Earth that was fried 30
years before by the sun because of a war that ripped a hole through the ozone layer. Sun-goggled
bikers run amok pillaging, killing and raping passers-by, yet Eli is morally sound and focused on
keeping his book safe no matter what so he can deliver it somewhere out west.
Although written by a first-time screenwriter and former PC Gamer editor, Gary Whitta,  Eli 
impressively creates its world between the sunglasses/goggles due to the sun s power, trading of
goods because money s obsolete and the constant examining of hands to determine if someone is
jittery from eating too much human flesh. Whitta also places Eli squarely in the story. He s a good
but dangerous man who s not afraid to kill, and as he sits idly by as a couple gets attacked, it s
abundantly clear that this is a world where compassion is secondary to survival and self-interest.
Where the plot comes in is  Eli s  weak link. It doesn t try too hard to hide just what exactly the
book is and that sort of dissolves some of the film s mystique. The plot is essentially Eli wants
to
protect it and take it west and he has a run in with Carnegie  Gary Oldman , an older man who runs
a
small town and desires it for selfish power-related reasons. Along the way, anyone who threatens to
lay a hand on Eli gets sliced up or shot. In the two or three fight scenes where he takes down
numerous guys at once, you can t help but wonder why after he kills the first few guys, the others
don t run the hell away, especially considering people are otherwise in self-preservation mode
living in a wasteland  and they know nothing of the book .
The Hughes brothers make those scenes worthwhile, however. There s a style and grace to their
action scenes -- they create a sort of a moving tableau in some scenes and execute a wide range of
tempos in the action sequences to make them more intense. When Carnegie s men encounter Eli and the
young woman  Mila Kunis  that he inspires who follows him at the home of some old folks  cameos by
famous Brits Frances De La Tour and Michael Gambon , they place the camera in the middle of the
action and sweep along with the gunfire  part- digitally  from one side to the other. It s very
cool
and is an example of one way the Hugheses keep the focus away from the plot s shaky skeleton. I
only
have beef with their excessive slow-motion walking-toward-the-camera shots and showing a bit too
much of the cloudy green-gray sky.
Some people are going to be more surprised and impressed with the film s big reveal than others,
but anyone with a love of action and that post-apocalyptic context will find something to make  Eli

a worthwhile watch regardless of plot weakness. Washington is slightly under-utilized but he s an
ideal fit. He brings an intensity in his demeanor that makes him an intriguing character and the
film does a good job of making his character more central than anything else.
Release Date: 15 January 2010  USA 
Genre: Action   Adventure   Drama   Sci-Fi   Thriller   Western
Runtime: 117 min 
Country: USA 
Language: English 
Color: Color 
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital 
More: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/