the book of eli

[chris]

i'd like to talk about the movie "the book of eli" for a sec.

right off the bat, i thought, not very original. seems to be a lot of apocolyptic films all of a sudden. last years "2012". then we had "the road". now, denzel washington's "the book of eli". i thought i'd give it a shot. equal parts old western, mad max, and ass kicking (not to mention sword weilding and shotgun swinging) do-gooder. the film was shot in odd blue and brown hues to give the feeling of both dispair and vulnerability. and that was most effective.

a gunslinging traveller walked, alone after a nuclear winter, across country. he was carrying something of remarkable value. the remaining survivors were lawless. the gunslinger chose when to involve himself in others business and when to mind his. until he arrives in a small western town. run by the fantastically dark and sinister gary oldman (who made a career of playing bad guys long before he became batman's commisioner gordon).

evil town leader wants what the wanderer has. with this in his possesion, he could rule the world, he thinks. there are shootouts only bruce willis or arnold schwartzenegger could ever possibly win. but the mysterious wanderer pulls it off. and who saw a pretty young girl getting involved?

the gunslinger walks off. but the pretty girl follows. girl gets captured and gunslinger has to trade away his most valuable possesion to save girl. this...is where the surprising twist ending(s) occur. i have no problem with one of them (that the possession was not exactly what it was thought to be). but the other one totally ruined the movie for me. made it an unbelievable waste of time. i will not ruin it for those who haven't seen it. but he could NOT have done what he did for as long as he did it if the sh!t surprise ending happened.

i know movies are for entertainment purposes. and some things need not be analyzed, poked and prodded for authenticity. but a filmaker's job is to make things believable for me. they do that...i enjoy their movie. they do not...i don't. some exceptions obviously apply (oh, i do enjoy my zombie movies)

but i ask...what are other opinions of this movie? did the ending work for you? this film had an honest 2 1/2 to 3 star rating from me...until the ending. it lost at least a full star because of it.

this reviewer says the book of eli should have been returned, permanently, to the library.