Escape to the Movies: Book of Eli

[jabrwock]

Spoiler

You said earlier that Eli was blind, the Bible was braille, he memorized it to have someone else transcribe it, and the actual paper book was useless. However Claudia was also blind and though she claimed she could not remember how to read she might have been lying. Eli knew this, so keeping the actual book away from Carnegie, who wanted to use it for his own purposes, wasn't pointless.

I'm still lost myself as to why Carnegie needs it so badly. If no-one else has a copy, then he could just write his own stuff, and no-one would be the wiser. If he doesn't care about the content, all he needs is the proper hardcover, right?

 

[Badassassin]

Spoiler

You said earlier that Eli was blind, the Bible was braille, he memorized it to have someone else transcribe it, and the actual paper book was useless. However Claudia was also blind and though she claimed she could not remember how to read she might have been lying. Eli knew this, so keeping the actual book away from Carnegie, who wanted to use it for his own purposes, wasn't pointless.

I'm still lost myself as to why Carnegie needs it so badly. If no-one else has a copy, then he could just write his own stuff, and no-one would be the wiser. If he doesn't care about the content, all he needs is the proper hardcover, right?

there would still be older people, and all i can guess is that he isn't creative enough and he knows enough about history to realize he can easily trick people

 

[TETSUOrocks]

Well.. some good movies have come from paper-thin plots. Am I going to name them? nooooooo....

I liked the action and the setting. The action scenes where carried out very well and didn't jumble all over the place like in alot of action flims. You could clearly see how everything was carried out. I didn't think Densil was able to do action so well although it might of been a stunt double.

I also don't agree that there wasn't a twist at the ending. There was.

 

[Slimshad]

for some reason, I'm getting a De ja vu effect here, where I think I have seen this review before. Same thing when I thought I say his review on The Road before.

All in all, he has steered me away from the movie.

 

[Alex_P]

... if you saw one commercial for this movie and didn't figure out what the book was, you desperately need to see more movies.

And if you're familiar with the genre, you can instantly invent a better plot yourself. Like, just imagine that same cast and budget devoted to a movie that was more like A Canticle of Leibowitz crossed with Mad Max and Fallout.

There's a kind of not-unclever wrinkle as to what shape it's in...

Unless you've ever seen a Braille book. They tend to be huge. Check out this picture of a real Braille Bible [http://www.megavoice.com/uploads/uses/BrailleBible.jpg] -- all of that is a single copy.

I'm not a stickler for realism in fiction, but messing up details on "the twist" is annoying and sloppy. It's like when those solve-it-yourself mysteries base their solution on a mistaken assumption, thereby invalidating the whole point of solving it yourself in the first place.

... some kind of big judgement-day war...

"The Flash" sounds like a thinly-veiled Armageddon rather than a human war. Why can't anyone remember the Bible? It's like all the Christians got "Raptured" up. Which is probably why these post-apocalyptic folks hated the Bible so much to destroy all the copies, after all.

Eli's book just happens to be a King James Bible; a lot of the same Christian sects who believe in the Rapture happen to have "KJV only" beliefs.

I feel like this is either intentional subtext or religious obliviousness on the part of the writer. (Given how often I see History Channel shows that manage to depict sect-specific or downright fringe Christian beliefs as representative of all Christianity, I'm not discounting pure obliviousness.)

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

Okay, this bit is weak sauce:

Once God becomes an active participant in the story, don't you kinda already know who's going to win?

There are very few movies where you don't know exactly who's going to win just by virtue of having an awareness of genre and narrative conventions. The interest-grabbing tension in most fictional conflict is more about the struggle than the outcome.

A divinely-chosen hero can still be a compelling character if you explore his choices, his sacrifices, and the cost of his victory. What would make him boring is not an ordained victory but having God lead him around, make all his decisions for him, and shield him from all loss and suffering.

What's Eli like? Does he struggle and suffer or just zoom from beginning to end on God's magic plot railroad?
Other reviews I've read make it sound like he has ridiculous bulletproof powers and all his companions gain amazing serendipity working in their favor at every turn. Oh, and they gripe that he spends the whole movie acting not-blind thanks to his divine powers -- not just blind-but-divinely-guided but straight-up able to do everything a sighted person can, even when it's mundane shit that has nothing to do with his holy quest.
Sounds like the problem isn't that God's involved or that Eli is God's chosen, but that God has really taken away any semblance of actual conflict in the movie.

-- Alex

 

[monkeyboz]

The one thing that I'm guessing we were suppose to get out of this movie is that the bible isn't about the rapture of God, but to protect the weak (and hot). People seem so hell bent on the entertaining parts of the bible that they mull over the general aspects and tend to hate the things that keeps them entertained in even picking it up for argument sake.

The oddest part about this movie and most religious movies is that you know that the side of God is going to win, but you have to wonder, why does God tend to play this game with us. Give us just enough hope to keep going and eventually die trying, never really knowing what the fuck we're here for (to think this movie may have created a greater paradox than the ending of the matrix).

If anything this movie is a true tale of life's eagerness to give you just enough to want more, but no more than what's around the bend. You expect there to be some huge battle at the end, or something awe inspiring and outside of our own understanding, but there's nothing but more desolation. Eli's constant battles to keep something safe enough for other generations to enjoy is only an interpretation of what's to come and in the end he's fighting for the same ending a few million years from now.

If anyone's seen Revolver, at least that movie put so much messed up ideology into it that it became so complexing that it made you at least thing "WTF am I watching". With Eli's struggles, it's just another simplistic interpretation of the calling of God to man and in the end the beginning to yet another end ... although the action wasn't too bad.

 

[HentMas]

wait wait wait...

so the whole movie is based on the concept that GOD himself told eli to go through a wasteland untill told otherwise!?

...

deus ex machina at work from the start, it then exempts eli from being labeled as a murdering bastard, i dont know, perhaps if we looked at this as some sort of "religion kills" point of view it could work but that would be trying to explain such ridiculous setup

even Kill Bill has more appeal by basing her actions on revenge, something everyone can relate to, too bad the best cover for him killing people is "god told me to"

 

[Ericb]

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.

This kind of clarity is what is missed in most posts on both sides of this discussion. Good one.

 

[SlowlyCrazyIAmGoing]

Hold on a moment here, moviebob had a few good things to say about the movie: amazing acting, good suporting roles. I feel he missed a few of the movie's better qualities such as the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack as well as the pitch perfect fight scenes that a choir of hell's angels could sing the halleluah chorus to, he also grossly underrated the twist at the end. Did the end of Fight Club or The 6th Sense render 99% of themselves pointless? Of course not. Their endings expanded what you thought about the movie, bringing instances to mind that you thought were inconsequential at the time as a mesh of clever hints in a tapestry of the one glorious epiphany. However, the twist was a bit hard to see; in fact, I didn't even know about it until my friends told me about it on the carpool home. That did not make it any less clever or mindbending.

Now, MovieBob, I have to say it: this is your least professional review I've ever seen out of you. Only about a minute of the whole four was an honest to goodness movie review, and the rest was trite at best. You say that the plot is bad. Why? Because it's based around God.

"..."

So? I kept waiting for you to come up with more reasons why the movie was bad, but the only (good or otherwise) point you came up with was that the villain was bland, which is true. At least in your Legion review you came up with very solid points supporting your opinion that the average movie-goer should not go see that movie. Not so much for The Book of Eli. I respect your opinion and your knowledge of what makes a good movie, but it looks like you're letting personal bias get in the way of telling your viewers what movies are well made and worth our time. Normally a negative review of a movie I enjoyed would make me respectfully dissagree and move on with my life, but I enjoy your reviews and it made me sad that so many people are giving this movie a miss simply because you said that "Main character's motivaion is spiritual = bad". I thought that his spiritual motivation made his character interesting, especially when he refuses to stop a murder, saying that he must, "Stay on the path, it's none of my concern." It's part of his growth as a character to move on from being a loner and to start acting on what he has been protecting.

In conclusion: Was The Blues Brothers a bad movie? They were on a mission from God too.

 

[Jsnoopy]

Hold on a moment here, moviebob had a few good things to say about the movie: amazing acting, good suporting roles. I feel he missed a few of the movie's better qualities such as the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack as well as the pitch perfect fight scenes that a choir of hell's angels could sing the halleluah chorus to, he also grossly underrated the twist at the end. Did the end of Fight Club or The 6th Sense render 99% of themselves pointless? Of course not. Their endings expanded what you thought about the movie, bringing instances to mind that you thought were inconsequential at the time as a mesh of clever hints in a tapestry of the one glorious epiphany. However, the twist was a bit hard to see; in fact, I didn't even know about it until my friends told me about it on the carpool home. That did not make it any less clever or mindbending.

Now, MovieBob, I have to say it: this is your least professional review I've ever seen out of you. Only about a minute of the whole four was an honest to goodness movie review, and the rest was trite at best. You say that the plot is bad. Why? Because it's based around God.

"..."

So? I kept waiting for you to come up with more reasons why the movie was bad, but the only (good or otherwise) point you came up with was that the villain was bland, which is true. At least in your Legion review you came up with very solid points supporting your opinion that the average movie-goer should not go see that movie. Not so much for The Book of Eli. I respect your opinion and your knowledge of what makes a good movie, but it looks like you're letting personal bias get in the way of telling your viewers what movies are well made and worth our time. Normally a negative review of a movie I enjoyed would make me respectfully dissagree and move on with my life, but I enjoy your reviews and it made me sad that so many people are giving this movie a miss simply because you said that "Main character's motivaion is spiritual = bad". I thought that his spiritual motivation made his character interesting, especially when he refuses to stop a murder, saying that he must, "Stay on the path, it's none of my concern." It's part of his growth as a character to move on from being a loner and to start acting on what he has been protecting.

In conclusion: Was The Blues Brothers a bad movie? They were on a mission from God too.

Boooring.... Also he doesn't say that character's motivation is spiritual= bad, he said when the main character sole motivation, with no explanation other than god told him too, = bad.

 

[Alex_P]

Hell, taken as just a work of fiction, the Book series "Left Behind" is actually pretty damn good, even if it is a faith based book.

It is? The protagonists don't do anything; they get dragged through the plot like Robert Langdon Times Twenty. The conspiracy plot that starts off the storyline is senseless. The book fixates on the mundane logistics of phone calls and travel plans, but can't seem to keep track of what day it is; and, for all this focus on procedure, the authors don't seem to understand even the simplest aspects of news-magazine journalism or UN diplomacy.

Most damning is the utter inability to actually write consequences for all these big ol' apocalyptic events. The novel starts off with what's easily the biggest disaster in human history and then it just doesn't matter after, like, two days. It's a "post-apocalyptic" story that utterly fails to actually consider its apocalypse. Any way you cut it, that makes for a crap book.

The most insightful and damning criticisms of Left Behind come from Christians familiar with the references it makes, the messages it's butchering, and the specific messed-up sectarian subculture that produced it. They can really get into the meat of it; it's too easy for outsiders to dismiss the bad writing without really understanding the bad theology underneath.

-- Alex

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Hell, taken as just a work of fiction, the Book series "Left Behind" is actually pretty damn good, even if it is a faith based book.

It is? The protagonists don't do anything; they get dragged through the plot like Robert Langdon Times Twenty. The conspiracy plot that starts off the storyline is senseless. The book fixates on the mundane logistics of phone calls and travel plans, but can't seem to keep track of what day it is; and, for all this focus on procedure, the authors don't seem to understand even the simplest aspects of news-magazine journalism or UN diplomacy.

Most damning is the utter inability to actually write consequences for all these big ol' apocalyptic events. The novel starts off with what's easily the biggest disaster in human history and then it just doesn't matter after, like, two days. It's a "post-apocalyptic" story that utterly fails to actually consider its apocalypse. Any way you cut it, that makes for a crap book.

The most insightful and damning criticisms of Left Behind come from Christians familiar with the references it makes, the messages it's butchering, and the specific messed-up sectarian subculture that produced it. They can really get into the meat of it; it's too easy for outsiders to dismiss the bad writing without really understanding the bad theology underneath.

-- Alex

Or...
you can look past all of that and simply enjoy the story.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves isn't a very deep story, but I still enjoy it. Thing is, if you just let entertainment be just what it is, entertainment, sometimes you can have a bit of fun with it.

These days I think people are a little TOO eager to over-criticize or over-analyze everything, intentionally seeking to sap any possible joy out of it.
Sometimes, a popcorn book is just that.. something to curl up with and enjoy. I don't need to come away from it with some sort of literary epiphany, or a better understanding of the complexities of human interaction, etc.

Sometimes, a book is just a book and a movie is just a movie. And sometimes, yes sometimes, they can be "Fun" all by themselves.

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

I can't believe movie bob is giving this film this much stick for having a simple story. its ok for drag me to hell to have the most mindless plot it the world and be just about the ride but book of eli is just a action film in a plot box labeled action plot and he goes off on one.

the real reason bob is screwing is because its a religious theme- and the film doesn't look like it moralizes or preaches or rams anything down your throat from what i've seen or heard.

can't move bob please put aside his childish, ridiculous offense about the film being about a guy who believes in god and actually tell us something about the film- is the action which people will be going to see good? hows the acting by all those brilliant actors and actresses?

and finally- unless god literally shows up on screen and catches the bullet thats about to kill eli then where is the ending spoiler? people who believe in god loose every day, and win everyday just as people who don't believe in god do.

Meh, I disagree. I don't think Moviebob hates the movie cause it involves religion, I think he hates it cause that's the whole point of it, and that it doesn't do anything with it. From what I can tell, the whole bible bit seems like purely an afterthought, with no real tie in to the story other then to bridge together a bunch of random fights scenes in the desert, and to get Denzel Washington to play the main character, cause everyone knows that a cool, well-rounded, kick-ass black guy makes a good protagonist (not that I have anything against Denzel Washington, it just seems like that's the type of character he plays in the movie). And of course, if he's really carrying the bible, he would never lose his cool, (especially if he was asked by God to do it), because he is fundamentally Jesus with shotguns at that point.

What Moviebob doesn't like about this movie is that the movie uses religion as a way to attach meaning, but that's all that it does to attach meaning to any of the actions of the characters. And in the end, at least from what I can garner, the end result is so unsatisfying that even the religious aspect of it loses significance.

In other words, religion as nothing to do with anything in the movie. That ironic thing is, is that for a movie that it seems like the religious aspect of it is the biggest part of it, that the movie actually has jack shit to do with religion, and that the religious aspect of it isn't nearly enough to lift it up form what it is.

But then again, I haven't seen it. I just think you're misinterpreting Moviebob's statements about the film as anti-religion remarks, when they are really just anti-bad-plot-device and anti-unsatisfying-conclusion remarks.

 

[Alex_P]

Or...
you can look past all of that and simply enjoy the story.

All the children on Earth vanishing but nobody giving a shit after a week is the story.

We're talking about the most basic fucking craftsmanship here, not some kind of "literary epiphany".

-- Alex

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Or...
you can look past all of that and simply enjoy the story.

All the children on Earth vanishing but nobody giving a shit after a week is the story.

We're talking about the most basic fucking craftsmanship here, not some kind of "literary epiphany".

-- Alex

I'm going to assume you actually read the series, correct? It wasn't just "children" that disappeared from Earth, it was a chunk of the POPULATION.. after all, it was the rapture.
The book series then goes on to cover the lives of several people from various walks of life making do in the Aftermath.

Add to that the issue of the Governments trying to sort things out, people dealing with the needs to obtain even the most BASIC goods, and the teetering of society on the bloody brink of absolute chaos. Yes all of these things are covered in the Left Behind series, much of which in just the first BOOK.
Of course maybe these themes were just so well hidden you completely glossed over them in your first reading. I'd kindly suggest you go back and read them again.

Mind you, the reason all the children were gone by the way was because Children are considered 'innocent' in the eyes of God, so of course they were taken along with all of the other 'worthy' people.

 

[Alex_P]

I'm going to assume you actually read the series, correct?

If I picked it up I'd be throwing it out after page 20. I got this, though [http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/]; quite thorough.

It wasn't just "children" that disappeared from Earth, it was a chunk of the POPULATION.. after all, it was the rapture.

The disappearance of a subset of Christians (there's a message that most mainstream American Christians don't count because they didn't believe in the right conservative-evangelical version of God) is actually mentioned from time to time. But everyone in the world is dealing with the loss of their children -- what amounts to, like, a billion deaths -- and you have scenes like this (Rayford's boss talking to Rayford about proselytizing at work, from Tribulation Force):

"You hit me with all that church and Rapture stuff, and I was polite, wasn't I?"
"A little too polite."
"But I took it as a friend, just like you listen to me when I brag about my kids, right?"
"I wasn't bragging about anything."
"No, but you were excited about it. You found something that gave you comfort and helped explain your losses, and I say, great, whatever makes your boat float. You started pressing me about coming to church and reading my Bible and all that, and I told you, kindly I hope, that I considered that personal and that I would appreciate it if you'd lay off."
"And I did. Though I still pray for you."
"Well, hey, thanks."

For people who supposedly believe that their novels reflect events that might truly come to pass, the authors absolutely suck at actually imagining what those events would be like.

-- Alex

 

[Mikkaddo]

I'm honestly surprised anyone could not realize the bible twist from the trailers. Think about it, he's carrying a super important book, or more accurately based on JUST commercials and trailers "item" to somewhere it will be "safe" and the TITLE OF THE MOVIE is "The Book of Eli" no other novel, biography, instruction manual I've ever heard of heads chapters by calling each of them Books . . . unless it's a compilation OF books (like the Vampire Chronicles) in which case each actual CHAPTER is still a CHAPTER.

So the main twist is in THE NAME . . .


as for keeping God out of the cinema, it's more that any time God is put into a movie or tv show, it's always the same spot.

It can be different in books or games or even anime or manga (Priest . . . look it up www.tokyopop.com ) but in movies and TV God always ends up being the good guy or the resident leader OF the good guys. No matter what there's never any questioning of it.

It gets more then a little tiring, it's like any super controversial election you care to name, if the most controversial candidate wins (not likely they would lose with controversy on their side) then for months, if not years after no one wants to shed them in anything but the most loving light.

It's like being surrounded by fanboys constantly fauning over something. A different viewpoint every now and again is not only refreshing, it's NESSICARY . . .

 

[S-Unleashed]

Wait why is this movie bad again?

 

[Mikkaddo]

wait wait wait...

so the whole movie is based on the concept that GOD himself told eli to go through a wasteland untill told otherwise!?

...

deus ex machina at work from the start, it then exempts eli from being labeled as a murdering bastard, i dont know, perhaps if we looked at this as some sort of "religion kills" point of view it could work but that would be trying to explain such ridiculous setup

even Kill Bill has more appeal by basing her actions on revenge, something everyone can relate to, too bad the best cover for him killing people is "god told me to"

You must remember that not only was her journey revenge but when met with the child of one of the people she killed she told her in no uncertain terms "in a few years, if you're still angry that I killed your mom, come find me and we'll have it out" so her story and character made more sense in all respects. She knew the weight of what she was doing, and was not afraid to face the consequences, nor did she think she was above them.