"The Book Of Eli".I caught the latest directorial effort from the Brothers Hughes on Sunday with mein brother. We liked the trailer, we like Denzel Washington, and we're both fans of the Hughes Brothers's "Menace II Society" and "Dead Presidents".
"From Hell"? Eh. It's not bad, but it takes too many liberties with the source material. It's nowhere near as bastardized as that other Alan Moore adaptation, "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen", but it's certainly not a great film.
As far as "The League" goes, I do somehow find Sean Connery's little metatextual asides amusing. Mentions of Phileas Fogg and such. When someone mentions the name of the film's big bad, "The Phantom", Connery quips "How operatic." I laughed.
Apparently, I am an idiot.
But why am I talking about this? I come here today to discuss "The Book Of Eli", and here I am getting sidetracked, again.
My local theatre of choice has a massive main auditorium with a balcony restricted to patrons aged 21 and above. The fortunate folks who sit in the balcony get the whole restaurant experience, what with the food and drink and the helpful wait staff.
When a big release plays in the main auditorium, the theatre usually concocts a few special alcoholic beverages with clever names related to the film. "The Dark Knight" had the massive pitcher dubbed "The Utility Belt", and most recently "Avatar" had the "Dr. Augustine".
Odd choice, there.
Maybe some of you imaginary folks out there living in the major sprawling metropolises of the world have had this theatrical experience your entire lives. But not me. Our wonderful, state-of-the-art theatre opened in 2002. So perhaps we're a little behind the times.
But damn you, I enjoy the balcony experience.
It made "The Da Vinci Code" bearable. I had to drink a lot to make it through that boring, pointless film, but I did it. And without the helpful wait staff with their magical alcoholic concoctions, it would not have been possible.
Unfortunately, I decided not to drink during "The Book Of Eli". A decision I came to regret.
I knew coming into "Eli" that it would have a religious bent to it. The trailers hardly kept the contents of Eli's coveted book a secret. I'm not a religious person, but I can watch films with religious themes and enjoy them, as long as they don't beat me over the head with their message.
I had problems with "Signs", for example. "Swing away"? Thanks for fucking up your third act, Shyamalan. Jesus in his divine wisdom orchestrates an alien invasion, possibly killing millions of hapless people, to make you a minister again. Fantastic.
Anyway, I'm gonna spoil this "Eli" movie, in case anyone who bothers to actually read this doesn't want the secrets of this amazing film ruined for them. Fair warning.
So Eli is carrying a Bible, apparently the last one in existence, through a post-apocalyptic American wasteland, headed West. Why West? Because God told him to head West.
30 years ago, the world descended into a religion-driven global conflict, culminating in a nuclear war (I guess). And after the bombs dropped, the survivors decided to gather all the remaining Bibles and have a good old-fashioned literary bonfire.
Because religion is evil.
Don't ask me why the survivors of a nuclear war decided the first thing they needed to do was burn a bunch of Bibles. Thanks to those damned Gideons and their relentless hotel chain crusade, the remaining humans must have had their hands full for quite some time.
So this Eli fella has been heading West since the war ended, walking "the path", as he says. He's been doing this for 30 years. It's taken him 30 years to cross the United States.
Even taking into account that the film doesn't tell us where Eli was when the mushrooms sprouted, and the completely wrecked infrastructure, I still find it hard to believe that it would take this guy 30 years to make it to the Pacific Ocean. But that's neither here nor there.
Eli shows his badass skills with the machete in an early fight with some gamey bandits, and listens to some killer tunes on his MP3 player, before wandering into a lovely little village run by gary Oldman's Mr. Carnegie.
Carnegie's got his goons scouring the countryside, looking for a book. But not just any book! Carnegie wants to use this very special book to control the masses with its words of salvation and damnation. I guess some people didn't learn any lesson from the big-ass nuclear fucking war that ended civilization.
Eli visits Tom Waits (what?!) to get his old battery charged up, and then saunters over to the local tavern to get his canteen filled. He gets in another fight, and gets Carnegie's attention, who sends Mila Kunis to Eli's room because he thinks the old wanderer needs to get laid.
Of course, Eli is a righteous man, and instead of boning Jackie from "That '70's Show", he leads her in a touching prayer before they share a meal.
Mila then leads her blind mother Jennifer Beals in a similar prayer the next morning, in the presence of Carnegie, who apparently owns them both, like Watto in "The Phantom Menace".
So Carnegie figures Eli's got a fucking Bible in his possession, and is being a greedy douche who doesn't want to share the word of God with him, and the hunt begins.
On a side note, it was nice to see Jennifer Beals again. I know she's been working regularly, but the last thing I saw her in was "The Prophecy 2". Angel Russell Wong knocked her up with a Seraphim, and Christopher Walken wanted to abort that abomination.
Eric Roberts was there, too. But he didn't do anything. He just stood around in an old refinery and stared intently.
I liked the film's ending, with Walken's fallen Archangel Gabriel being cursed by his brothers, made into a filthy talking monkey. He's standing on a street corner, holding his legendary trumpet, with his long hobo hair, rambling about a phone call. Brilliant.
I guess I'm trying to say that I like "The Prophecy 2" more than "The Book Of Eli". I actually like "The Prophecy 3" more than "The Book Of Eli". But not those other two Kari Wuhrer-starring sequels "Forsaken" and "Uprising". Those two flicks suck.
Where was I? Oh, right. Jennifer Beals.
She played the blind slave mother to Mila Kunis in "Eli". She looked gorgeous. But she always looks gorgeous. I never saw "The L Word". I wonder if she ever appeared topless in that show. Hmm...
Anyway, Eli has a heart-to-heart with Mila Kunis after he saves her from being raped by some wasteland predators. He tells her that after the war, a voice led him to this miraculous Bible, and told him to head West.
This is where the unremarkable-yet-entertaining movie lost me.
Eli keeps heading West, and Mila Kunis follows him, like a stray dog. A stray dog with perfect hair and teeth in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And perfect, sculpted eyebrows. Carnegie organizes his Bible Thumper Mercenary Convoy and they set off after the Westward Wandering Badass.
More fights ensue. Michael Gambon pops up as an elderly cannibal with a hidden arsenal, then he dies. Gary Oldman shoots Denzel in the gut and leaves him to die in the desert, taking his precious security-locked Bible with him back to Bartertown. Mila Kunis kills Punisher 3 then finds Eli easin' on down the road to ruin, bleeding from his belly.
They head to San Francisco's famous Alcatraz Island, now a cultural archive run by Malcom McDowell with a shitty wig. Back in Carnegie-ville, Gary Oldman shakes and sweats as he watches Tom Waits pick the Bible's apparently very complicated lock.
I'm not sure why the man didn't just grab the key from Bleeding Guts Washington, but that's a minor nitpick.
After the lock is picked Mr. Carnegie pops open the holy tome only to find that the pages are in braile.
That's right, folks! Old Eli is a Blind Biblical Badass! It's "Zatoichi meets Fallout".
Eli didn't need the Braile Bible anymore, you see. He's read it so many times, he knows it by heart. So while Carnegie's little empire descends into anarchy, Eli holds on just long enough to dictate the entire fucking Bible to Malcom McDowell's magnificently awful wig.
Christopher Walken's wig in "The Prophecy 3" was more convincing.
Eli dies, and Malcom McDowell asks Mila Kunis to stay with the hippies at Alcatraz, but she declines, choosing instead to take up Eli's mantle of "Badass Wanderer" and return to Gary Oldman-burg to... Save her mother? Spread the Good News?
I don't know. I couldn't stop laughing at this point, watching little 5'3'' Mila Kunis trying to exude "cool" with her distressed regulator duster and hand-me-down machete. It was too much.
That's the movie, I guess. Not a satisfying experience, to say the least. I don't ever want to see this movie again. There's no point.
At least I can still watch "From Hell" every now and again. I own "From Hell" on DVD. I won't buy "The Book Of Eli".
The Hughes Brothers made a bad movie.
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