The next disclaimer I want to make, before I dive right in, is that I enjoyed the movie. A solid 3 out of 5, maybe. It was a visual treat, and I’ve liked the Hughes brothers’ other films to varying degrees (as I did with ‘Eli’) and I think they’re talented filmmakers.

This is where they lost me…

First is casting.  Denzel, good. Oldman, good but a weak role for him. Not as crazy/dynamic/memorable as some, but as always, he did it well.  Mila f’in Kunis?  I like her, in general.  Mostly in comedic roles.  Not my favorite, but not bad either.  The end scene where she goes all Milla Jovovich LOOKED good, but I couldn’t buy it because.. and this is her main failing being cast in this role.. she plays snotty, entitled bitches.  That’s her role.  She could play the fun sexy friend in a summer comedy.  She could play a few other roles, I guess.  But she’s NOT a kid who grew up in a post apocaylptic wasteland, even if she spent her whole life in that town.  And for the love of GOD… she’s NOT a badass and could never grow into that role in whatever shot time passed between Denzel dying and her heading out on her own.   If they think they’re getting a sequel.. a “Book of Solara”… it’ll be lucky if it gets a direct to DVD treatment and does any better than she did in “American Psycho 2” (maybe Bill Shatner can be in Book of Solara!).  Hell, Donnie Darko’s sister in “S. Darko” would have been a small notch better just because she’s not QUITE as snotty and not QUITE as entitled.  Kunis + Sword + iPod = all the sequel you need to see and should ever be made.  Two minutes too much, too wrong.  I do have to say that she’s starting to look like a little Angelina Jolie (see here) but she’s far from raiding any tombs anytime soon.  Grow up some, wear some blood around your neck, adopt a bunch of foreign babies and have sex with Billy Bob Thornton, then you’ll be beat down enough to get that ‘rugged look’ working for you.

Next..  green screens.  We get it.  Some shit’s fake.  No need to go from solid visual decrepitude to obvious CG.  Yes, I know the TransAmerica building is 30 years into the rot of neglect but that looked weak.  The transition between the water and city looked weak.  The light on their hair looked weak.   What’s bad in cases like this is, if it’s glaring on the big screen, it’s going to look like total crap when it finally airs on TV.   I watch old movies and go “wow.. the CG really hasn’t aged well…” but I remember in the movies thinking it looked pretty good.  Same eyes.  Same brain.  Same world view.  All things being equal, I’m guessing the CG at the end of the movie is going to look extra weak when it comes to TV.

Going backwards here…  you found an old iPod (because an iPod Nano never would have survived.. if the world is bombed out, you can only find OLD battery operated tech.  No ZuneHD for Denzel)..  but when the battery runs out, you push a bunch of buttons as if anyone who’s ever used one of these devices ever thought that would somehow get you more juice.  That was a blatant play for the viewers.  Look, he’s got an iPod.  Look, it has power, but it’s run out.  Boo hoo.  How will he ever charge it again?   Since you can’t have newer tech like a solar charger (which can be found a good number of places these days), we’ll just have to trade some beaver pelts for a guy to recharge your battery.

Oh yeah…  fake book = claymore.  Cute. Good idea.  Why was it dropped in the open area, but it makes the whole car explode and shoot straight up as if it was thrown directly under the center of the car?   Maybe I just missed something.   While on topic of that fight.  Do you really stop shooting when the bad guys declare “cease fire” and a guy comes out with an RPG?   The bad guys aren’t shooting at you anymore AND there’s big hurt coming your way.  SHOOT MORE!

But the notes about the fight and iPod are petty quibbles, not really a “where they lost me” moment.

This is what REALLY gets me, and I swear this isn’t coming from my personal beliefs, but it’s the central core (and ‘hook’) of the movie: The world is half destroyed by a war and EVERYONE agrees it was the bible’s fault?  Not religion in general.  Not any other religions.  Christianity.  So EVERYONE destroys EVERY bible in the world?   Ok, I’ll bite.. for the sake of creating a reason for things.  That’s what fiction is about and all.   But that central premise goes well beyond “suspension of disbelief” than any other concept in the movie.   That’s Spiderman suspension of belief right there.   The bible is the #1 most published book in the WORLD, last I heard.  They got rid of ALL of them?   In the panic of the world being destroyed, every hotel was emptied of it’s Gideons?  There weren’t enclaves of fanatics who protected giant storehouses full of bibles?

Ok, so somehow the entire United States (the world?) have gone from roughly 10-15% atheist to 99.999% anti-Christian, maybe religion in general (although not enough to destroy all the other religious texts..unless they did and only mentioned the bible explicitly).   What we get after all that is a showdown between good, honest, faithful preacher and evil, bad, controlling, manipulative, would-be preacher.  And of course a world full of godless heathens (gangs, cannibals, murderers, rapists) who’ve never known the Word of the Lord because it’s been verboten their entire lives.

Then they pull a number from Thomas Cahill’s “How the Irish Saved Civilization” by taking a remote, defendable island and filling it full of the world’s knowledge and turning it into a way to redistribute this knowledge back to the world after the the worst is over.

People bitch about Avatar having a completely unoriginal storyline (see Pocahontas, Ferngully, Dances with Smurfs..err..Wolves, etc.. and if Avatar stole from them, they stole from each other.. or probably an earlier tale, which is more likely) then Book of Eli isn’t far behind.  Lone man wandering the wasteland (Mad Max, Jeremiah, Resident Evil: Extinction), town run by bad guys full of whores at the bar, water rations, etc (all standard devices).  There were enough redeeming qualities to make it interesting (the twist with the book, which I WON’T spoil because it surprised me a little and might still for someone else.. although it’s obvious SOMETHING is up with the book), the fight scenes were pretty badass (taking lessons from Equilibrium’s Christian Bale almost?), but still some WTFWHY moments and things that could have been better if they just tried to keep it simple.