Tell your sister, you were riiiiiiiiiiight.
Last Updated: Jan 23, 2012
The Book of Eli
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Submitted by animal on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 14:07
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I'm surprised that there hasn't already been a topic on this movie yet. Has anyone else seen it?I went into this movie without the slightest clue on what it was going to be, period, I came out almost ready to turn around and pay to see it again!At first, the movie was a little hard to understand but I believe that the directors did a great job of explaining that this wasa post-apacolypic world without having to mention it directly (which they end up doing just before the plot gets nice and juicy). I also think that they described, pretty accurately, what life would be like for the survivors.The thing I liked best is how the twist at the end (which you might actually be able to figure out yourself if you pay close enough attention) explains everything rather than shock you (twist ending are cool, but if they don't expain anything, or just make things more complex than they need, there really isn't any point).The plot was UNBELIEVABLE and was one of the better movies that I've ever watched. It also gave enough action to keep anyone interested in (which is a problem for some movies--e.g. Lovely Bones). I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but the journey was unbelievable.It's also important to point out that the end cleared everything up, without being waaaay to preachy.As always, Denzel Washington gave a perfect performance as well as Gary Oldman. I prabably could have done without Mila Kunis. In fact, the only problem I had with the movie was what Mila Kunis' character did (or technically about to do) at the very end of the movie.Overall, I think that The Book of Eli was the best movie that I've seen since The Dark Knight. Too bad it came out around the same time as Avatar. In all actuality, I liked The Book of Eli better than Avatar (it was a little too predictable and I can't stand sappy love stories--no matter how big or small).My rating: a 9.5/10 (I had to take off 0.5 because of Mila Kunis).Anyone else have any thoughts on the movie?
Comments:
You read my mind :)
Animal, you are so intuned to HISHE headquarters. ;) I just wrote a review on this and posted it to the main page. When I came into the forum to start a comment thread, I found this! For future reference, we try to keep this section of the forum only for films that have reviews on our main page, but your timing was perfect. If you want to review a movie we haven't reviewed yet, just stick it in the "MOVIES" section and if I end up writing a late review on a film (like this one), then we'll just move the thread up here.ANYWAY, I absolutely agree with your review. In fact, we seem to have the same, small problem with the film as well.I highly recommend this movie and I reviewed it late because I just couldn't stand the thought of seeing "From Paris with Love." I just couldn't do it. And I'm super glad I saw this instead. FULL REVIEW
From Paris with Love?
I actually just saw that movie! The only thing I can say is that, if it wasn't for John Travolta's character, this would have been a horrible movie *goes to start a thread in the correct forum*But anyways, If it hadn't been for my friends who just happened to be in Columbus and inviting me to the movies, I would have never have seen this! So glad they came up to Ohio State for me!**HUGE SPOILER ALERT**A lot of people are debating the end whether Eli was really blind or not. To me, I think that the directors went through too much trying to convince people that he was blind for him not to be. I really can't wait for this to come out on video so I can watch it again (or maybe just hope it stays in theater's long enough to catch it at the cheap theater when I go home). I really want to watch it again knowing the twist.
SPOILER
SPOILERSI agree that he was blind the entire movie. I've seen the debate on this and I think it's interesting that it's even being debated. I've even heard people say he was only blind in one eye. That's just silly. He wouldn't need to learn braille and it would defeat the whole miraculousness of it. And I know a few people who have seen it a second time and say it is neat to watch again because there are a lot of clues. For example, he feels everything (for the shoes in the car, etc.). I am looking forward to seeing it again on DVD as well.
Oh good grief
I agree, that's just plain ridiculous. If that were the case, then the careful crafting all the way through the movie was just an accident, all a coincidence? (Hm, this is a nice illustration for other... realities. ;)Me too, Animal. I want to watch it again, knowing what I know.
i didn't want to see this
i didn't want to see this movie until i read your review. good job red. Denzel rocks. oldman does too. i should've known it'd be worth watching if for no other reason than the actors that were drawn to it, but honestly that trailer doesn't do much for the marketing of the film. funny that. -CitizenBuck
thats what i want to hear
these are the reviews i want to read tina! i totaly agree
LOL!
Okay shemonster. I would totally recommend you just read reviews that are 4 stars and up. I truly can't guarantee to you that I'm going to like every movie I see. In fact, I can pretty much promise I won't. I'm glad you enjoyed this review though. Did you see the movie?
I thnk that it's unfortunate
I thnk that it's unfortunate that this movie came out at the same time as Avatar because I personally think that it's an amazing movie and has been undermined by Avatar's success. I don't know, maybe I'm just biased towards Denzel?
SO good.
Nice reviews, Animal and Red.I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Honestly, I can't really find much fault with it, except for the exact same thing you both did. Maybe I'm being cynical, but how much do you want to bet that some producer forced that ending so that there was an entree for a sequel? (And if there is a sequel with that premise, I'm not going to see it!) I think HISHE would be hard pressed to make a HISHE out of this film - unless it just cut out the last two minutes altogether. ;)I was on the same page as you Tina, about yet another post-apocalyptic movie, but was so pleasantly surprised. I didn't notice that the pacing was slower, but it's probably another reason I liked it. There are not many people who do like that slower pace, which unfortunately makes so many films inaccessible. But the pacing reflects the length and difficulty of the journey - you feel it along with the character.Tina, you picked up on some great elements - the saturation, the character's determination linked with the movie's progress, the sparse dialogue. I don't think I consciously noticed the latter two; I was simply immersed and enjoying the film. I'm curious what you noted about the sound editing, though. The landscapes were great, and the cinematography captured that well (as did the saturation). The movie had a great feel to it, even with the desperation and horror of the context.I didn't see the suprise ending coming at all, but as soon as it was revealed, my mind was flashing through all the clues throughout the movie - kind of like Sixth Sense. We've been talking a lot around here about obvious, predictable or recycled plots, and it was so refreshing to watch something where I really didn't know what was going to happen next, or how it was going to end. I enjoyed Eli's wrestlings with whether or not to get involved at several stages, and the resultant consequences of each of those choices (I think there was a bit of a ripple effect because of his choices before and after his arrival in town). It certainly touches on the reluctant hero theme, but it did so in a less-than-tired manner.Washington and Oldman were very strong in their performances. Oldman's character was maybe a little too over-the-top for me at times, as I vacillated from despising him to not-quite-believing him anymore. But that's a minor comment. I highly recommend this film - with the caveat that it's frequently violent and gory, both in action and in some of the realities of life, post-global disaster.P.S. (Spoiler):I love the irony that in the end, Oldman's character shot himself in the foot by having mistreated the only person who could have translated the book. Ah, the sweet smell of justice... ;)
For the most part I enjoyed
For the most part I enjoyed The Book of Eli. I even tolerated Mila Kunis somehow managing to be a tough chick with an attitude in a movie that featured at least one rape per half hour. Seriously, what, she was like protected because her mom was doing the local mob boss and he had a soft spot for her or something? Anywho, the interesting part is the twist, and it still irritates me. To be honest I didn't see it coming, and I still feel justified in that because the film had to lie to achieve it. It's kind of like one of those murder mysteries where evidence that is crucial to the solution is simply not available until the reveal at the end of the story. There isn't a problem with most of the stuff that would have demonstrated to the auidence Eli was blind. There are enough clips on Youtube of blind people using echo location and whatnot that I can buy his ability to navigate the environment without sight. So why do I think the movie lied?1) Blind people can't shoot things. It would be cool if they could, and they do in movies, but they don't in real life. For example, there are blind archery competitions but all the blind people need tripods with aiming devices and they need sighted people to point the aiming aids in the correct general direction. The idea that Eli could bullseye people with a pistol (hard enough to shoot accurately when you can see) and can shoot around a hostage to hit the badguy is just not acceptable. If Eli can do that, he's not blind.2) God's guidance sucks. He's been walking since the apocalypse, which was 30 years ago, and he knows where to go because he follows the feeling of "westness" God sends to him. The problem is that the country is only around 3,000 miles wide and google maps estimates it would take around 40 days to walk all the way across. Even if you took a lot of breaks and some wrong turns it shouldn't take longer than a year. So, either he decided to ignore God's voice for a coupld decades, or following God's guidance has led him to walk 55,000 miles (assuming 5 miles per day for 30 years). The Earth is only 25,000 miles around at the equator. He could have made better time by simply following the setting sun for an hour each day and ignoring God. So, when he arrives in Mila Kunis' area, all of a sudden he is making a bee-line for the west coast. It's like he bounced around on the east side of the Rockies for 29 years before he finally figured out a way across. 3) The braille book doesn't mean anything. Sighted people can read braille. God could have taught a person with sight how to read braille. Also, Eli specifially said that God led him to the book with a feeling. The book wasn't his, God led him to it. It it was his book he would have said, "and then God told me to go get that old Bible I installed a lock on for no particular reason." 4) Blind people are obviously blind. The reason people aren't constantly mistaking blind people for sighted people in real life is that people who can see do all sorts of things that blind people don't. For example, they can respond to facial expressions. Being "stoic" will only trick so many people for so long before they realize that you aren't stern, you're just blind. In my mind, this is the biggest lie in the movie: Solara (cuz of the omnipresent desert sun? whatever) FOLLOWS Eli. They're walking through a desert so there isn't always stuff you have to walk around, but they are obviously shown dealing with things like big hills and buildings. People who have their sight will respond to things like that while they are still really far away. Blind people won't. It shouldn't have take Solara more than an couple hours to realize that Eli couldn't tell what was in front of him until it was right in front of him. There's even a scene where they are watching that house with the old people in it. Was that Solara's idea or Eli's? Was Eli just pretending to be stoic until Solara said it seemed safe to approach the house? There's no way Eli could have contributed to that conversation. So, in conclusion, I give the film makers credit for doing a really good job of making Eli plausibly blind, but I revoke more credit for deciding the twist was so important they had to screw up the storyline just to achieve it. Plenty of films give away the twist. There's no shame in doing it. Revealing that Eli was blind at the beginning of the third act actually would have made the climax even more suspensful! Instead the main characters just sort of plow ahead to their inevitable success (they are the protagonists after all) and Eli somehow manages to ignore his internal bleeding while Solara manages to ignore the fact that Eli is blind and has no idea where he's going.
I can respect that...
While I highly respect and appreciate your (constructive, thank goodness) opinion, I believe that there are a couple of things that you seem to overlook:1). The biggest thing that you overlooked is the fact that this is not a "real" blind person, it is a movie character. In movies, you are expected to give leanway, after the rules for the movie have been set up. Every movie has imporbable events, actions, decisions, and plot holes (HISHE displays this once every month ;])2). God's guidance does not necessarily "suck." To say his guidance sucks is to completely overlook the significance. His mission was to bring the Bible to a place where it was most needed; not get from point A to point B in the quickest amount of time. Think about what he was doing the whole 30 years--it was basically training until the time was right. Honing his combat skills, sharpening his senses, getting everything he needs, etc. Also, maybe it wasn't the right time to deliver it. Maybe the Island wasn't ready yet, maybe the people most important to his journey were not yet in place. God's guidance was actually very good when you consider the fact that this blind man had not only stayed alive, but healthy, taken care of, and mentally & physically superior. Don't forget, in the end, he was right after all!3). The braille itself may not have meant anything but, assuming that he is blind, it only furthers that arguement. Also, after the disaster, how many people (blind or not) born afterwards will be able to read braille? I believe that the Bible, written in braille, is another device used to prove that the Eli is, in fact, blind. I can't think of any other reason why the Director would go through so much trouble leading us to believe that.4.) I don't too much remember the house scene, but I do remember there being a sign that said "Keep out" or "beware" which would have been an obvious sign to stay away. Solaris couldn't read, which is why she didn't say anything, and Eli was blind which is why he didn't pay it any attention. Also, before they fell, he had heard something (hightened sense of sound). The desert didn't have to many changes in landscape, but let's try to give some leanway here and say that he delt with it as he went along. Remember the house at the beginning? If he could see, then why did he have to feel around everything in order to navigate?I actually like the twist at the end of the movie (for the record, I did NOT see that comming). The entire time you go through the movie thinking "woa, this dude is SWEET!" Then they dropped the whole he was blind the whole time and you, literally, go back and remember all of the signs and think "WOW! This dude is 10x's more SWEET!"That's just my opinion. I apprecaite that you actually gave a constructive arguement as to why you disagree. This is the kind of thing we need!
I don't have a problem with
I don't have a problem with stories having their own internal logic. I have a problem with stories violating their own internal logic to produce an effect in the audience. It kind of passively breaks the fourth wall in a cynical, this will get them talking and make us more money, kind of way.It is actually more irritating beacuse Eli was so close to being a perfect character! Thinking back on the story after the twist I was impressed by all the hints that were thrown in without giving the fact away. For example, Eli hears the first attack, he smells the second attack, he only shoots people after they make noise, etc. I think my favorite hint was when he slowly backs into the shadow of the bridge before fighting the robbers. He could feel the sun on his skin so he knew he was in shadow and if he had no need to see anything he could at least take that advantage away from his enemies. I want to watch the fights again to see how consistent the coreography is in allowing Eli to attack and defend without being able to see. That being said, the story stretches too far. Eli just gets away with too much to be a believably blind.Yeah, I considered the idea that God deliberately didn't send Eli straight to the west coast, but as I remember it the story specifically undermines that idea. Eli didn't say that God told him to go train martial arts for 29 years, or to travel for 29 years, or to do anything except head west. The only explanation I can think of is that maybe God kept Eli moving from one relatively safe spot to another to preserve him for when he could do his job. But that's a really simple explanation and it would have been really easy to slip it into the story. It would have even set up a good backstory. A prequel in which we follow Eli around, maybe even starting with the apocalypse, would be really cool. Denzel kicking ass will always put butts in the seats. The flaw in that idea is that if God was moving Eli around for 29 years to keep him and his bible safe why couldn't he have just chosen someone who lived in San Francisco and had a bible? On that topic: the bible is the most over-published book in history. Especially in America. The Gideons have put one in every single motel in the country! There are electronic bibles, pocket-sized bibles, and apparently leather-bound braille bibles with locks on them. The idea that the ENTIRE American population decided bibles were evil is just absurd. Realistically there would have been just as many people fighting to the death to preserve the bibles as would have been trying to burn them. Even an off-the-wall crazy estimate would still have pockets of people preserving bibles. The movie's concept that Eli's the only one who preserved a bible, and only because God specifically told him to, is one of the biggest suspensions of disbelief I've ever been asked to participate in.You can't further an arument if you've already accepted it as true. If you presuppose that Eli is blind then, yeah, reading a braille bible makes sense. But the presence of a braille bible in no way requires that the person reading it be blind. I agree that the audience is obviously supposed to believe Eli is blind when the bible is revealed to be braille. However, I think the braille-ness of the bible is intended more as a wall against the antagonist getting his hands on the inspiraitonal power of the bible than proof that Eli was blind. It also served as a "there are none as blind as those who will not see" metaphor. The antagonist wanted to use the bible as a weapon, thus demonstrating that he was not living his life as Jesus would have wanted. He is one of the willfully blind people that, in our modern world, don't go to church. So his willful blindness is demonstrated to him by the presence of the words right in front of him, and the presence of a person who can read those words, but by his inability to read them and his inability to get someone to translate for him. This was contrasted by the revelation that Eli could see better than anyone, despite the fact that he was physically blind (at least that's the idea). Why else would there be another blind character in the movie? There was no particular reason for Solara's mom to be blind. The only purpose it served was allowing her to throw two big middle fingers in the bad guy's face when he realizes he can't read the book. She can read braille because she had to. If no one else was blind there'd be no reason for them to learn braille, and the scene would lose a lot of its impact because no one would be able to read the book. Your mention of the sign is important. I don't remember it, but lets assume it was as you describe. Since Solara couldn't read, and she and Eli were approaching a potentially dangerous location, and she was following him and relying on him for guidance and protection, it would have made perfect sense for her to ask Eli what the sign said. She saw him reading! She believed that he could read! She would have asked him what was on the sign. He could have blown it off with a stoic "don't worry about it, babe" but she definitely would have asked the question. On that point: it also makes no sense that only one generation after the apocalypse everyone is illiterate. It's not that hard to learn to read, and after the apocalypse they only burned bibles, so there were plenty of written things lying around. Also, reading has always been a good way to not only share valuable information (books on drilling wells would have been prized) but also escaping from reality (books with fantasy or scifi themes would have been popular). Those people obviously didn't have much to do, so at least some of them would have taught and learned how to read if not write. Just like the one blind character, the presence of dozens of illiterate characters serves the purpose of enhancing the effect of the metaphor. Eli is not only walking through a literal desert, but also an intellectual and spiritual one. Seriously, how many rapes were in that movie? Eli is carrying God's word to a place where people want to read it and through a place where everyone is willfully unable to read it. The desert is created by people's desire to close their eyes and ears to God's message. The world is simply refelecting the status of the population as fallen, just like how the world was never as perfect after the apple incident as it was in Eden.They don't specify how far away from San Francisco that little town is, but it is obviously no more than a couple hours drive, definitely no longer than a day. That is well within walking distance for everyone in that town, and obviously within driving distance. Why would anyone stay in the middle of the desert when the coast is right there? It is always easier to live next to the ocean than in the middle of a deset. More on that point: the movie deliberately avoids getting into specifics on how these people live. The population doesn't just sruvive on water, they need food too, and I doubt that Dominoes is delivering. So they must have some kind of farming operation going on, but it is never mentioned or pictured. The building Eli spends most of his time in is a bar/brothel. The local power is reduced to stealing trinkets from random travelers on the road but somehow manages to keep multiple vehicles running and even takes the time to outfit one with a roll-out machine gun. What was he using that thing for before he decided to demolish a house? Even Chevron doesn't think gasoline can be stored more than a year http://www.chevron.com/products/tips/fuel-school/?&aID=130&cID=24 so where did they get all that gas to run the vehicles? All these issues are immaterial because the movie is a giant metaphor. I just think Eli would have been even SWEETER if he had been revealed as blind sometime before the last minutes of the movie. Imagine if Solara had realized he was blind when they got to that house and all the gunfighting and driving and rowing and whatnot had been done by a blind guy, much of it while he was bleeding out. Carnegie (Gary Oldman) could have taken the book from Eli after the house fight, and opened it right there. He would have looked at the braille and freaked out that Eli was causing him so much trouble as a blind guy, then Eli could fall over apparently dead from his wounds. Carnegie could have rushed back to his town to get Solara's mom to translate it for him (with Solara escaping in the same way), only to arrive as the town is going to shit. Then the scene between Carnegie and Solara's mom could have played out exactly the same way while at the same time Solara and Eli are arriving at Alcatraz. Then Eli could have revealed that, despite the fact he lost the bible, he still "has it with him" and he could have started reciting it exactly the same way.
Great comments!
Great comments guys!I agree it was a little unrealistic that Eli would be such a good shot. That is the toughest thing for me to believe too. However, this is supposed to be a spiritual story about God's supernatural guidance. So I kind of chalked his skill up to God's ability more than his.I'd have to see the movie a second time to really comment on some of this stuff. I didn't remember that Eli found the Bible immediately after the "apocalypse", so I didn't know for sure if he had been traveling the entire 30 years. But if he has, I'm inclined to agree with Animal that God had a purpose for the timing. It's a pretty good allegory for real life as well since God's timing rarely matches my own. Ha! :)I do think there was probably some "falseness" in the way they presented Eli so that you wouldn't believe he was blind. I can agree with that. But I also think there was some truthness. I can remember lots of examples throughout the movie where he DID act like a blind person and I just didn't pick up on it. I think Solara was maybe suspicious, I mean, she did have a blind mom afterall, so I agree that she should have been the first to pick up on it. But maybe she remained unsure because Eli was so skilled at shooting, etc.Anyway, super smart comments...I love the discussion!