Playlist: The Book of Eli

Why? What's not to like about a dystopian wasteland?

It's in-your-face apparent that the Hughes Brothers decided to make an "important" film. It stars Denzel, after all. Denzel as a man of few words walking alone through the CGI desertscape of yet another Armageddon-ravaged world. Sounds like a kidless The Road, doesn't it? Although that actually was an important film (and book). That was an examination of humanity. This is a love letter to The Bible. With beheadings and eviscerations. Which come to think of it, are both very biblical. (The violence and the sex are what really make it "The Good Book".)

As in all of these end-of-the-world fests, there's something valuable that everyone wants. Usually, it's something literally relevant to survival. Water, perhaps, or food. Pig shit, of course, if you're Tina Turner. Not here, though. Here it's the last copy of The Bible on Earth (fact check, please). Denzel, as Eli, is carrying it to the West Coast for some sort of delusional Messianic reason. Gary Oldman, playing a post-apocalyptic Al Swearengen, is the small town overlord who wants that book so he can control the masses. See, the Word of God is the most magical force in the universe, but even it can be corrupted by an evil nutjob. Get it? (We first see Oldman reading a bio of Mussolini. Yeah, I get it, thanks.)

The fight scenes are well-choreographed and this would have been a fun, if inconsequential, movie if it weren't for them hand-feeding us their "theme." There's a "Big Twist" at the end that is pretty good, though I don't know how necessary it was to all the action before it.

Two more: Mila Kunis, who I normally like, is terrible as Eli's sidekick. And there's a major plot hole about gas that would have been easier to ignore if the film didn't point it out in the previous scene.

Eh. Could of used zombies.