Skip to main content

The Book of Eli!!!

The summer blockbuster season might be a bust, if Shrek 4 is any indication of things to come. So it's a perfect time to look at movies from the recent past.

The movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, after a global war that saw all forms of art, literature and antiquities destroyed. It follows a man named Eli (Denzel Washington) who is carrying a mysterious book across America. He fends off all sorts of miscreants before landing in a town controlled by a power hungry man named Carnegie (Gary Oldman). It turns out that Carnegie has been searching for that very book as he believes it can be used as a source of power and control over people. He knows that there is only one copy left in the world and when he discovers that it is in Eli's possession, he sends his cronies after him to retrieve it.

So the book in question is none other than the good ol' Bible, but for some reason they never refer it to that, opting to call it "the book" in conversations, even though it's quite clear what it is. It's not until the last act when they finally call it the Bible.

I thought the movie had a lot of plot problems. At nearly two hours in length, there was a lack of a ramp up throughout the movie, so before the movie can even head to a climax, it just ends. I can't even say that it was anti-climatic because of the lack of a build up. In its final closing moments, I kept thinking that this couldn't be it, there had to be more. But alas it was the true ending.

From a technical point of view, the movie was beautifully shot with its rugged landscapes brushed with a low palette. Some of the shots were so visually stunning, it was too bad that they had nothing to complement them with. The fight scenes in the movie were also pretty well done. They were really short and quick fights shrouded in shadows, which sort of reminded me of the fights in Batman Begins. The big gun fight in the third act was also good, done in almost two completely seamless shots... but you can sort of tell how they cheated.

So the movie was really mediocre, a case of style over substance. But I'll say this much, even though we only get to see him for a few seconds Monk Denzel Washington is many buys! Later geeks!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW HAIKUS!!!! (#3)

It's time for another edition of Review Haikus; a feature I like to write when I'm too lazy to write out full reviews~!!! The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Tony Scott schlockfest~! All his movies seem the same. A needless remake. Denzel's a bad-ass. Given up on Travolta. 1 of 2 ain't bad. Public Enemies Well? Disappointed. I expected more from Mann. The pacing felt off. Acting was good though. Man-crush on Depp and Bale. 5 more syllables! Saw VI Yes, another Saw. Harder to tell them apart. Blood, guts, bad story. Why more Saw movies? Each movie makes less and less. End this series now. ====== Later geeks!

Mark Waid's IRREDEEMABLE (Issues #1-7)

(Note: be warned that this review is on the spoiler heavy side, so read at your own discretion if you don't want the story spoiled.) Since I was a teenager, I always had this dream that I would become a quirky movie director and I'd make a bunch of crappy little horror movies to start with, but that my first big movie would be this anti-superhero movie. I dreamed up of an Apocalypse Now -like movie using existing Marvel superheroes where Captain America would go mad, slaughtering the innocent and go into hiding somewhere 'up the river'. There would be a detective like character (possibly superhero) that would be after him, interviewing his former teammates to find out what made the all-American hero go mad. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Irredeemable . Although not exactly the story in my dreams, it's pretty close. I started reading the series this past weekend upon the glowing review that those geeks over at iFanboy put up a few weeks ago. As far a

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3!!!!!!!!!!!! (PS4)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is Activision’s latest entry into the bestselling Call of Duty franchise.  Developed by Treyarch Studios, the Black Ops subseries of Call of Duty games has been considered by many as the best of the COD games.  Whereas Black Ops 1 and 2 were direct sequels, BO3 seems only to be a spiritual sequel to its predecessors.  There is no direct or clear continuation of story from the previous entries.  Rather it takes the ideas of mind control and manipulation, and spins off its own story. It’s a futuristic world, where humans are infused with technology (much like Robocop!) and fight alongside and against robots.  This time around, you assume the role of an unnamed soldier, who together with your partner Hendricks and a CIA agent named Rachel Kane, track down a former Black Ops commander named John Taylor as he and his former squad appears to have gone rogue destroying CIA sites around the world.  The story will take you to Singapore, Egypt and ev