Escape to the Movies: Book of Eli

[Turtleboy1017]

Not that it should matter, but I'm not an Atheist

My issue with the use of religion in this movie is that it's heavy-handed yet also profoundly silly. Christianity in "Eli" is used like magic spells are in "Harry Potter": Eli teaches a person who's NEVER even heard of religion before to say grace, and immediately they're a better, more confident human being than before. The bad guy wants The Book for the same reason: "The Words" will give him power (and the movie agrees with him.) Aside from being a flat-out distortion of the religion in question, that's just GOOFY - especially in a movie trying so hard to be gritty and "real."

FWIW, here's the part that I DIDN'T want to spoil in the review (click at your own risk) that more or less colored why the particular treatment of religion in the movie didn't work for me:

Spoiler

In the last five minutes of the movie, we discover that The Bible is in brail - Eli is blind. The implication, then, is that everything from Eli's uber-awesome swordsmanship to his supernatural survival instincts to his "sense" of his ultimate destination - a colony of post-nuke librarians dedicated to preserving and restoring books - are all "the hand of God."

Nevermind the fact that this means that God has guided Eli on his path in the longest and most dangerous manner possible for NO discernable reason, it renders ALL of the tension moot: Eli is the only one who can read the book, and he's been memorizing it so he can dictate to the librarians, so at ANY time he could've just tossed it to the bad guys and kept walking - there's LITERALLY been no point to the entire "protect the book" premise of the whole film.

How the exactly is it 100 percent clear God was a participant? There was no divine intervention, no Gabriel and Moses with shotguns, and Eli didn't sprout wings and start flying,

He had bad eyesight but wasn't completely blind. His other senses were honed to near perfection, and I didn't see some dude with a white beard whispering in his ear what was happening.

Sure some scenes had religious undertones, but so many other movies do the same without explaining "God". IE: He was shot in the gut but lived. In MANY other films protagonist is shot or stabbed, but lives. If that person were praying before they had died, methinks you would hate it.

Almost all who saw the film defend it. Nearly everyone else now doesn't want to see it because you didn't like the religious premise.

 

[jboking]

THIS MOVIE DOES NOT SUCK.

Went and saw it anyway(it's the weekend. I was bored) and it's not terrible, but I wouldn't say it's very good. it's just kind of meh. Some of the faster paced scenes were nice, but I disagree about god not playing a role in this movie. It was his main motivation. If you once stopped in the movie and asked, "Why is he even doing this?" You would realize how much of a role god/faith played.

 

[Undercover]

Once again, getting attacked for my views...

really? do you also walk into the ghetto and say "i am part of the kkk!!!"

and do you realize that if you say your an atheist, people don't try and force god down your throat (at least most normal people) but if you tell an atheist your religion he'll try to convince you how idiotic and how bad religion is. so please, don't go into your rant about religion, because its so tired and samey as all the other atheist speeches we've heard here.

I beg your pardon? Where are you getting your "facts" from? Firstly, you have no idea who I am or what kind of person I am, so to make a statement like your "KKK" one only proves your own ignorance, and has nothing to do with what I was talking about. It made no sense at all.

If you would be so kind as to explain why you said that to me, I would appreciate it.

And as far as walking around telling people I'm an Atheist is concerned, just who in the hell do you think you are making blanket statements like that? So you're saying that in all the research you've done (I'm assuming that you've done extensive research into Atheism, otherwise making a statement like that was very foolish) you can conclusively say that all Athiests will try to force their beliefs on other people, even to a greater degree than religious types doing the same, and indeed will do so with condescension and insults?

I'd like to see where you got that information from, unless of course you just made it up and are basically talking out of your ass. So which is it, fact or fiction?

And as far as my "rant" is concerned, my friend you have yet to hear one from me. Not once have I ever called someone an idiot for their religious beliefs. Misinformed and misguided perhaps, but I would never stoop to such juvenile statements.

I could spend all day talking about how religion poisons everything, and back up every statement with histortical and proveable facts.

How about you? I've already said it once, if you want to get into it with me you'd better be prepared.

Attack me again, see what happens.

1) i said that because if you throw that sort of stuff out into the wind, your just going to get it right back in your face. i don't care what you think but you just don't say things like that, its just rude.
2)it is a blanket statement based on my expierience. yes i have seen religious people come down on atheists for their lack of faith, but i've seen more atheists to come down on religious people for their faith, and with a much more pretentious and condescending arguement, probably because theirs is more informed. with people i know, atheism is just a way to feel high and mighty.
3) "misguided" and "misinformed" are just more condescending ways of calling someone an idiot.
" no no, i didn't call him retarded, i called him mentally challenged, because that's so much better."

Ok its obvious that I can't have any kind of intelligent discussion with you as you continually spout opinions rather than facts, and seem to be more interested in putting yourself on a pedestal and insulting me than you are in coming up with any cohesive statements that don't involve belittlment, and I have no respect for people who put words in my mouth, nor can I take seriously the words of someone who still hasn't mastered the art of spelling & punctuation.

You obviously didn't read my post all the way through, or even comprehend what I was saying because it seems that you were too busy formulating more insults. For someone who thinks Athiests believe themselves to be "High and Mighty," you are most certainly the pot calling the kettle black. Your circle of friends (or lack thereof) does not constitute universal opinion or belief.

Don't waste any more of my time and don't bother quoting this message or even writing any more, as I have no interest in hearing you talk to yourself. If it matters that much to you then go ahead, but you need to ask yourself, does it matter if you have the last word if noone's listening?

 

[Turtleboy1017]

THIS MOVIE DOES NOT SUCK.

Went and saw it anyway(it's the weekend. I was bored) and it's not terrible, but I wouldn't say it's very good. it's just kind of meh. Some of the faster paced scenes were nice, but I disagree about god not playing a role in this movie. It was his main motivation. If you once stopped in the movie and asked, "Why is he even doing this?" You would realize how much of a role god/faith played.

But that's the thing, who cares if faith played a huge role in it? In a movie where the hero rescues the girl, is it not the same? God didn't directly do jack-shit in the film... He was MOTIVATION. The same as a king wanting to free his people or a man wanting to rescue his wife.

The movie was in no way amazing... but it was at the very least entertaining. MB bashing the film for having God in it was retarded, since you could have replaced God with his dead wife and the bible with hi wedding ring... and something tells me that if something like that was indeed the case, he would have liked it a LOT more.

 

[solidstatemind]

The Bible!... I do not see myself going to watch this one.

This is exactly the problem with your review, Bob.

Demagoguery.

Saw the movie yesterday. Was it revelatory? A life-changing experience? Fuck no. But it was enjoyable.

Was it Christian propoganda? AGAIN: fuck no! In fact, the exchange that stuck out to me was: Solara - "what's the book say?" Eli - "Do to others as you would have them do to you... at least, that's what I got out of it." And that is the MOST religious discussion in the whole damn thing.

Does that really sound like proselytizing to you??? REALLY?!?

No, but you portray it as such.

Does God ever come down in a burning bush and manifest himself and say "ELI! YOU ARE MY MOST AWESOME WARRIOR! CARRY DA BOOK AND I WILL PROTECT YOUUUUUU...."

No, it doesn't happen: even if you intimate as much. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in this movie that could not be explained away by dumb luck, regardless of how unlikely it might be... (of course, to me, that was the subtlety of the Hughes Brothers: yeah, you could claim 'that was so unlikely, it obviously was the Hand of God.', allowing those poisoned against religion could view it as a bad thing, while religious zealots could view it as a good thing, while those of us in the middle could be... torn...)

Again, this is a relatively moot point, however:

The issue I have had with your review from the beginning (I will repeat it one last time for those Escapist members who might be a bit slow) is that you spent a good deal of your review ridiculing the movie simply because it involves religious elements that make YOU uncomfortable.

I found the movie to be an interesting distraction, and certainly worth a DVD rental, even if I wouldn't run out and see it in the theaters, but your review would seem to say that it's religious propaganda on the level of fucking Left Behind [http://www.leftbehind.com/] which is PATENTLY FALSE.

Seriously, I see no reason that an areligious person, or a Muslim, or Jewish, or Hindi, or Pagan or whatever couldn't enjoy this movie as a tale about the sustaining power of faith. Yet, I ask you, what would most people take away from your review?

I don't think I'm far off to say that it would be: "It's an absurd movie about a guy protecting a Bible."

 

[Therumancer]

Actually the described plot of the movie is pretty much what I thought it was all about. Simply put it was about an act of faith, and really I don't see that as being a bad thing. Plenty of movies in a very similar vein have been done.

Truthfully Moviebob kind of dropped the ball here. "The Book Of Eli" basically strikes me as being what Steven King's "The Stand" should have been. "The Stand" basically being about the end of the world, with the surviving people rallying in two camps of good guys, and bad guys. The good guys pretty much wind up undergoing this test of faith that is "The Stand" where they head off accross the remnants of society, get captured, and the leader of the bad guys (Randall Flag, a recurring demon in Steven King's mythology) tries to get them to renounce their faith. They stick to their guns and the hand of god comes down and pwns all of the bad guys. That's the short version. It's kind of profound in a way, and about the power of faith (as many of Steven King's stories are), but really you kind of expected more.

I get the fact that a lot of people are even less spiritual than me, and have no belief in god (or anything spiritual at all) I really get that. I do not think that just because your an atheist you need to attack any spiritual message, or a story about faith.

I still respect Moviebob (I wouldn't bother to post almost every week if I didn't), but really I think he kind of got so focused on his dislike of the premise that he missed the obvious comparison.

Oh and one final point, just because god is involved does NOT nessicarly mean the resolution is beyond doubt. Stories about faith, are not always just about the conflict itself but also about the possibility of the person losing faith, or failing in the face of temptation. This is incidently a KEY element of Arthurian mythology, and how things finally play out for example. Even looking at versions like "The Once And Future King" Lancelot's fall from, and return to grace is a KEY element of the story. It's so classic that we all know what's going to happen before even reading it nowadays, but now pretend you read some of these stories without that knowlege.


To again also invoke Steven King, he involves god in a lot of the things he writes. One of his stories called "Desperation" featured a storyline about god fighting to protect humanity and stop the incursion of an evil godlike force known as "Tak" (to put it simply). He chooses a boy as his champion, and he basically becomes a saint. But the thing is that god seems to have his hands tied without sacrifice. He rarely gets involved apparently unless it's really important, and one of the key themes was basically about how god is cruel (not that he wants to be), but he's also VERY strong, and both a good guy and on humanity's side. It dealt with issues of sacrifice, the greater good, and picking one's battles. It was interesting because it managed to do a good job of making God into a force of good while both managing to stay fairly true to both the Old Testament version and the more forgiving New TEstament version (to state it in terms most Christians will get, I am Christian but don't subscribe to any existing faith, which I won't get into again right now).

At any rate, Moviebob is welcome to his opinion, but I think he should have done more with this review even if he came out aagainst it. Not trying to say he should like something he obviously didn't (tastes vary) just be a little more fair.

 

[solidstatemind]

That was a pretty slick post, Theru. In retrospect, 'The Stand' comparision really works! Kudos!

 

[Badassassin]

The Bible!... I do not see myself going to watch this one.

This is exactly the problem with your review, Bob.

Demagoguery.

Saw the movie yesterday. Was it revelatory? A life-changing experience? Fuck no. But it was enjoyable.

Was it Christian propoganda? AGAIN: fuck no! In fact, the exchange that stuck out to me was: Solara - "what's the book say?" Eli - "Do to others as you would have them do to you... at least, that's what I got out of it." And that is the MOST religious discussion in the whole damn thing.

Does that really sound like proselytizing to you??? REALLY?!?

No, but you portray it as such.

Does God ever come down in a burning bush and manifest himself and say "ELI! YOU ARE MY MOST AWESOME WARRIOR! CARRY DA BOOK AND I WILL PROTECT YOUUUUUU...."

No, it doesn't happen: even if you intimate as much. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in this movie that could not be explained away by dumb luck, regardless of how unlikely it might be... (of course, to me, that was the subtlety of the Hughes Brothers: yeah, you could claim 'that was so unlikely, it obviously was the Hand of God.', allowing those poisoned against religion could view it as a bad thing, while religious zealots could view it as a good thing, while those of us in the middle could be... torn...)

Again, this is a relatively moot point, however:

The issue I have had with your review from the beginning (I will repeat it one last time for those Escapist members who might be a bit slow) is that you spent a good deal of your review ridiculing the movie simply because it involves religious elements that make YOU uncomfortable.

I found the movie to be an interesting distraction, and certainly worth a DVD rental, even if I wouldn't run out and see it in the theaters, but your review would seem to say that it's religious propaganda on the level of fucking Left Behind [http://www.leftbehind.com/] which is PATENTLY FALSE.

Seriously, I see no reason that an areligious person, or a Muslim, or Jewish, or Hindi, or Pagan or whatever couldn't enjoy this movie as a tale about the sustaining power of faith. Yet, I ask you, what would most people take away from your review?

I don't think I'm far off to say that it would be: "It's an absurd movie about a guy protecting a Bible."

This!

honestly, i thought bob was way off on this one. he totally blew it out of proportion. which is wierd, because he usually is a good reviewer.
Besides, all his reviews done is spark a religious debate (which i took a part of... woops) and nobody wants that.

it was entertaining, it wasn't the best movie ever but it had a good story and was relatively deep

 

[Wrds]

I know I'm sort of on the opposite of Moviebob here but....is this argument still going on?


Like...really?

 

[akiata]

Forgive me if I'm repeating someone. Actually, I kinda hoping I am, but the movie was like a mix of the book The Road and the game Borderlands. The postapocalypticness of TR and the desert and fighting of Borderlands. There is definately a higher connection between them, but to avoid confusion through details I'll leave it at that.
At the very least the movie was entertaining though. Then again MMOs can be considered entertaining, so it just depends on what you like. If you don't like faith driven plots, then you might like the fight scenes. But if you want a movie to make you think really hard then it mioght not be the best. It's possible though if you look at it from certain viewpoints.

 

[Badassassin]

I know I'm sort of on the opposite of Moviebob here but....is this argument still going on?


Like...really?

you are absolutely right.

 

[thebestaround21]

i hate disagree with Movie Bob but the whole plot did kinda take a big twist and i dont want to ruin it because i recommend people see it, the movie is about the journey, just like the road, not some mad character arc its a solid movie love it for what it is and dont compare to something else.

 

[Benjeezy]

Moviebob just kinda...idk. His whole "review" consisted of "RAWR i hate this premise God is silly derpy derpy doo".

It just didn't seem professional to me. I'm not saying I could do better, but he should try to avoid ranting on a single topic for the majority of the "review".

But again, it's just my opinion. Versus his.

 

[Neesa]

Well, I just saw the movie and I enjoyed it. My friend didn't really know if she liked it or hated it. Just kinda left her with a "Huh?" sorta feeling.

Personally, I think the story behind it is pretty interesting. Also, shows you how much of a strong influence the Bible has in society. One of the first books that stand against trials and tribulations is the Bible. I agree with an earlier poster about how the Bible is so symbolic and significant on its own. It didn't need a gimmicky, hollowed out anything to change the context of how important his mission was. Yes, the main theme of the story was testing one's faith. Even when things look bleak, he still continued on. That's a very strong character trait for anyone to have. It's also very hard to maintain when things are falling apart around you, but you stand strong on your faith. Which was the true premises of the movie, in my opinion.

In the end, the review was pretty "meh" and didn't really review the movie well at all. Sorry MB, try again next time.

 

[AdamaGeist]

Really, everyone should watch (and read) The Road instead of this. No kung-fu, but loads more going on - a moral core not based on some dumb book, for a start.

So... Instead of getting our moral codes from an old book, we should get our moral code from a new movie and the book it was based off of?

 

[Ham Blitz]

Well, this was an interesting review, though I have to honestly say I liked the movie. I would say spoilers, but since the review already had spoilers, those reading this probably wouldn't care now, so I might as well not bother... though I guess don't read it if you some reason still don't want to know:
For a good half of the movie, all you really do know is that he is carrying a bible (or the last one) West, and determined to not get stopped. You really don't figure out that he says he was told by god or "A voice he heard" until a little after mid-movie. By then it didn't really bother me much, since he doesn't mention it much more until almost the end of the movie. I would honestly say I liked the movie, even though there was the whole "I was told by god to deliver this".

 

[jboking]

THIS MOVIE DOES NOT SUCK.

Went and saw it anyway(it's the weekend. I was bored) and it's not terrible, but I wouldn't say it's very good. it's just kind of meh. Some of the faster paced scenes were nice, but I disagree about god not playing a role in this movie. It was his main motivation. If you once stopped in the movie and asked, "Why is he even doing this?" You would realize how much of a role god/faith played.

But that's the thing, who cares if faith played a huge role in it? In a movie where the hero rescues the girl, is it not the same? God didn't directly do jack-shit in the film... He was MOTIVATION. The same as a king wanting to free his people or a man wanting to rescue his wife...
with his dead wife and the bible with hi wedding ring... and something tells me that if something like that was indeed the case, he would have liked it a LOT more

I'm inclined to agree with you. You see, if it was his wife there actually would have been personal backstory to talk about that could have enriched the overall story. As it stands, when he outlines his motivation is to essentially move the bible to some place safe everything is out on the table. You know the motivation before he can even say anything about it. Using the bible was a weakpoint for this movie. Plain and simple. There were many others, like a few of the characters being kind of flat or predicatable by script, though the actors did a good job with what they had (and I know bob complimented the actors), but using the bible as a crutch for the story was the biggest weakpoint in the whole film.

The movie was in no way amazing... but it was at the very least entertaining.

That's...arguable. It was predictable and used just about every cliche in the book for action movies. It was just...meh. Not entertaining really, just meh overall.

MB bashing the film for having God in it was retarded, since you could have replaced God with his dead wife and the bible with hi wedding ring... and something tells me that if something like that was indeed the case, he would have liked it a LOT more.

We could end this with, it was his opinion of the movie and if he couldn't get over the fact that the bible was the main motivation then there are probably others that won't be able to either. This time you just happened to disagree with him. I mean hell, you guys could do what I do. That is, watch Bob's reviews, keep in mind what he said, and go see the movie anyway.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

And this is why the PS3 sucks...

Don't take me to seriously

 

[Mr. Grey]

I strongly disagree with this review and can't help but feel that MovieBob missed the point of the movie entirely. Or what it was building up to at least.

The movie is not moralising, the movie is not preachy and the movie is not shoving nonsense down your throat. The movie is entertaining (At least to me), the movie made me realize something and it didn't make me froth at the mouth with rage. Unlike Drag Me to Hell did...

And it has become obvious to me that MovieBob and I have different tastes, so I probably won't be watching another review. It has nothing to do with the quality, just differing opinions.

 

[Frolly]

Dammit MovieBob, now thats TWO movie reviews of yours that I have been completely shocked at (the other being 2012*).

I felt this review was primarily the product of extreme religious criticism due to an overstepped sense of "knowing the REAL truth (or what have you..)," which is a common negative side effect of atheism (I assume this is your religious view based on the review and MY judgment of your character.). I gatherer (from watching it myself) that Eli was carrying the book west based on his belief that it would do good for humanity and might pull them out of the sad state we see it in (Killing, stealing, rape, ect.). The bible could be a very useful tool that could (and has been used to) give people moral structure and beliefs that would hold them accountable for their actions (whether or not those beliefs are true or not are irrelevant to the end goal of bringing humanity back into check). Eli knows this. He also knows that in the wrong hands this powerful tool/force can be used badly and for the wrong reasons. The Mayor (I forget his name) was exactly this. One who would use it to control and to empower himself (he even talks about that being his plan!). This has happened before in history (I dont want to go over this whole sha-bang of this so ill just give you the rundown... Jesus (to the best of my knowledge) taught morality and compassion for fellow man and that was it. It was the "chruches" that later on began adding their own rules and creatingt different versions of verses in the bible. This created the image of christanity today that athiests love to hate, the mutated mind controling version of it.). Eli's interpetation of the bible is (thankfuly) a simple and grounded one; "do to others, better than you would do to yourself." basicly this is the idea of treating others how you would want to be treated.
Now those miracles that we witnessed in the movie (the bullets that the bald guy shoots do not effect Eli) are shot in a way that lets us interpet them in in both lights. We can A), see that the first bullet simply missed (or hit his knife and bounced off[thought i heard a metal clang]) and the second bullet missed by 2 inches and tore through his hood, or B) That it was divine protection from god. Never does the film say, "This was a miracle of God." All of the scenarios in the movie (i believe) can be explained rationaly. Its all open to interpretation. Some see luck, others see holy intervention.
As a plot I agree, It was pretty linear. Linear but entertaining enough to keep me interested. That being said, overall it was a pretty average movie (7.2). There were scenes in the movie that were VERY "hollywood." Most notibly was the end scene where the girl all of the sudden becomes road warrior lara croft! Also her acting was terrible! (more acuratly her delivery).

Anyhoo,
Regardless of this review, I hope you continue making videos because I really love your enthuasiasm for films in general!

[And just so you know where I'm coming from; I'm an agnostic theist.]

*I went in with the mindset of seeing a "stupid-but-fun-rollercoaster-ride" like you advised but DAMN, that shit was unbearable!