The Book of Eli

The power of disasters and the potential of an apocalypse fascinate movie goers, usually during times of strife or near the end of a decade.  In the eighties, forty-six movies were released that focused on the dissolution of society as we know it, and most dealt with the threat or the consequence of nuclear war – alluding to the potential consequences of the newly born Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based anti-ballistic missile defense system – and for this site, appropriately dubbed as “Star Wars” by its critics (this time without an English-accented princess who sounds like she’s from Brooklyn by the end of the film). 

The nineties only produced a dozen apocalypse-centered films, but flooded the screens with natural disaster flicks – often in tandem – to fill the difference and portend the end of civilization implied by the digital clock that would read 11:59 on December 31, 1999.   Producers covered comets in Deep Impact (1998), Asteroids in Asteroid (1998), a bigger asteroid in Armageddon (1998), volcanoes in Dante’s Peak (1997), Volcano (1997), and Volcano: Fire on the Mountain (1997), flooding in Hard Rain (1998) and Waterworld (1995), and the perpetuation of Ben Affleck’s career with Armageddon and Reindeer Games, which, by all accounts, was a disaster in itself.

So, it should be no surprise that the first decade of the new millennium – which went surprisingly unnamed, so I’m going with the “aughts” – ends with a handful of apocalypse-centered films in The Road, 2012 (working title: The Mayan’s Revenge), and The Book of Eli. 

Full disclosure: Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite novelists, so I didn’t see The Road for fear that I would compare each scene to the book and predestine myself to obviate any enjoyment before entering the film, though I hear it’s pretty good. The previews for 2012 scared me away when they showed John Cusack driving a car, screaming into a cell phone, and fleeing an earthquake — an earthquake that appears to be chasing his car.  Sounds more like an HBO, I’m a bit too lazy to change the channel movie.  The Book of Eli fell conveniently in a two hour block that I had to kill before heading to a meeting.

Directed by The Hughes Brothers (From Hell), The Book of Eli marries conventional end-of civilization tropes by citing a giant hole in the atmosphere (global warming) as the cause of the burned, desiccated landscape that surrounds the dilapidated buildings and shanty towns that house the remaining survivors; in addition, the hole is exacerbated by nuclear activity (yay humanity’s love for nuclear holocausts!).  The dash of seasoning to this apocalyptic petit four is the hand of God — or rather the question of whether God is a fictional character created for the purpose of control, or the divine who breathed into our nostrils the breath of life and allows those spared from the apocalypse to regenerate humanity.

Regardless of how America became a wasteland, Eli (Denzel Washington) must trek to the West in order to deliver his book. Standing in his way is the aforementioned landscape as well as cannibals, a lack of water, a lack of food, and a group of rogue bikers who are sent out repeatedly to locate a single book that intrigues Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the despotic ruler of a small civilization in which he claims to “own” most of the people, particularly his blind love interest Claudia (Jennifer Beals) and her daughter Solara (Mila Kunis), who serves as both Carnegie’s concubine and prostitute-for-hire.

Clearly, the book that Carnegie wants is the book that Eli possesses, and without giving too much away, the book is The Bible, which begins the discourse between the power hungry Carnegie and those that need the word of God as salvation. 

The idea for The Book of Eli isn’t terrible, and the oft-used Divine-discourse allegory isn’t so heavy handed that it repels a viewer looking for some apocalyptic carnage, but the film disappoints when it forgets the scope of the film it has set forth.  For instance, in the first scene, the audience is placed in a leafless forest of gray, desiccated trees that serve as the backdrop for snow-white ashes falling from the sky. At the same time, the innocence of winter flakes is juxtaposed with the glaring sun that shines atop the screen, but implies a creepiness because these “flakes” never melt, prompting the question: What has been burning? Or, who?

This scene perfectly sets the audience up for a film of desolation and destruction. 

However, shortly after, this image of isolation is wiped away when the camera spends more time on Denzel Washington’s face. While Washington is a fine actor, shooting him closely does not add to the theme of desperation and survival. Instead, it asks him to be the vehicle for a film that should be driven by its isolation-steeped genre.  Likewise, the silence of the film is often broken by interjections of music. If the music were part of the scene, perhaps some that a character listens to, it could symbolize the last resource that a man or woman has to connect to the previous humanity. Instead, it often serves as a narrator or comic relief. 

I hear that Apocalypses are unpleasant, and moments are needed to break tension, but in The Book of Eli, these moments are trite and, most often, just campy. Aside from the music, there are strategically – yet obviously – placed markers that dance on the gray line of metaphor and silliness. As Washington makes his way West, he enters a path that is littered with road signs that read “Dead End,” “Do Not Enter,” and “U-Turn.”  These signs are eventually trumped in the third act of the film that finds an argument brewing between Claudia and Carnegie. As Carnegie sits disheveled and bamboozled behind his desk, Claudia triumphantly moves toward the door as the camera draws back to reveal a white piece of paper that hangs from the center of a closed book. Sharply written in black marker is the word “Ocean.”

Admittedly, some of the action scenes are rather cool, and Eli proves himself to be the ultimate machete-wielding badass, but there are some glaring holes in storytelling. And by glaring, I mean you could take every plot-problem from The Day After Tomorrow (except the damn wolves) and place them inside the ground zero-size hole of a twist at the end – which won’t please a single Atheist – but it whole-heartedly takes advantage of the aforementioned Divine Intervention angle.

DYL MAG Score: 6

Related Topics: Ben Affleck, Denzel Washingon, Gary Oldman, Jennifer Beals, Mila Kunis, The Book of Eli

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