The Book of Eli

Woah. I like seeing movie's in the theater. I just feel like everything's better on the big screen. See this in theater's. The Book of Eli wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. It had the action I expected. Denzel being Man on Fire Denzel. But there were so many other qualities that I didn't expect. This movie is about the power of the Bible. The real Bible. Not some universal, Hollywood Bible. The real thing. There were only a couple things I didn't like. Really just one. There was some weak sauce product placement. A dilapidated Busch Beer truck, a run down J Crew store, a couple Oakley products, and my personal favorite, some very fresh looking Beats by Dr. Dre earbuds. They weren't too distracting though.

Let's talk about characters before we get into the plot. Gary Oldman, Commissioner Gordon, Lee Harvey Oswald, Rosencrantz, plays the best bad guy I've seen in awhile. Truly evil. Corrupt, selfish, dirty. Every moment he's on screen he eats it up. You're always focused on him. Mila Kunis plays the first really serious dramatic role that I've ever seen her in like she's been doing it her whole life. She's a pretty powerful screen presence too, which I didn't expect. And she's gorgeous. Denzel, as previously mentioned and always expected, is perfect.

I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff. I haven't gotten around to seeing The Road yet, but the book was fantastic and I expect that movie to be much like this. Shot with that colorless filter one would expect of a world after what was most likely a nuclear war. They never really say exactly what happened, I guess it's not important. The cinematography was pretty good. Not great. But there weren't too many lame tricks. No Matrix garbage that's so over played. That slo-mo stuff was cool 10 years ago. Not any more. I was glad this movie didn't employ any of that.

This movie is all about the Bible. Denzel was led to a Bible amongst the rubble by a voice, presumably God's. The voice told him to take the Bible west. So he does. The whole movie is centered around him traveling west, to the coast. (Stolen from The Road? Maybe, but I don't really care.) Denzel understands that this Bible means something. That its words are powerful. That it can change the world. How true is that? Isn't that what Christianity teaches? The to Bible, and its Gospel, has the power to change the world. But evil knows this too. And evil wants to take the Bible and twist it, stretch it, and make it serve its own purposes. That's what Oldman wants to do. He plays this small time crime lord who employs brutal men to carry out his brutal tasks in order to find a Bible. While Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4, he quotes the scriptures, but out of context, for his own purposes. And thats what Oldman wants to do. But good prevails, even though it looks like evil will. Oldman finally acquires Denzel's Bible, only to find that he can't read it the way he expected. And when Denzel and Mila Kunis finally make it to the coast and find a safe haven of knowledge and books that are intended to reteach and rebuild the devastated planet, Denzel is able to dictate the entire Bible to Malcolm McDowell from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. The entire message of the movie is simple. The Bible is powerful, and it's words can bring Light into the world. But, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Matthew 7:15.