The Book of Eli

Rated R

Warner Bros. Pictures

Running time: 118 minutes

In a post-apocalyptic world, Denzel Washington travels across the devastated country to deliver a book - of which some aggressive survivors want to procure.

The first act of The Book of Eli is very slow as Denzel just basically survives among the ruins. It is only when he arrives at a village that a story begins. You slowly learn about the war that devestated the world, and about Denzel's purpose in life as he travels in a land of illiterates. Why the land is full of illiterates I did not understand. Savage survivalists I could understand, but not illiterates. The movie reminds me of Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Sadly, the women in this post-apocalyptic film are basically objects to be used by the men stronger than them. Mila Kunis's character is one such character, used by Gary Oldman to learn more about Denzel and his book, until she runs away to travel in the safety of Denzel's protection. What happens with Denzel towards the end of the movie is unbelievable, unless he has some sort of powers that were not explained in the movie.

Denzel rigorously trained with Bruce Lee's prodigy Dan Inosanto and supposedly did his own stunts. Unfortunately with the editing, you can not really see Denzel's martial moves that actually shows this training. With the editing that was used - anybody without training could have performed those moves, so it was hard to tell of Denzel's training. The movie is much more of an intellectual film rather than an action film. However, even with the intellectualism of the film, the movie is very graphic.

Rated R for violence. Running time: 118 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.