Throw together a lone figure with their own arsenal of weapons and a post apocalyptic world and you have the potential of a pretty cool film.  But you also have the same description of about a billion other movies out today. Though we will trudge through the familiar in The Book of Eli, the end of the road is well worth the path taken to get there.

The lone figure for this film is Eli, a man who has been traveling across the barren remains of the United States, hoping to someday reach the western coast.  Sounds simple enough, but it’s not as easy as a two-day journey in a commandeered car.  Instead, Eli has spent the last 30 years hoofing it, dealing with the usual downside of an apocalypse, including the scarcity of food and water, and murderous thieves who will pry your stuff from your cold, dead hands before eating the body attached to those hands.  Though these roadside attacks show that the value of a civilized society has gone down hill once the world as we know it was destroyed, small towns still exist, including one ran by a man with a strange obsession with the written word.  I’ll give you one guess as to who is currently carrying a book with him.

This world may be a dangerous place for the average traveler, but 30 years on the road has given Eli a lot of experience points to dole out to different skill sets.  He has grown well attuned to the world around him and can often avoid a threat if possible or deal with it with a ranged weapon, but occasionally a close quarters fight is unavoidable.  This is when his trusted blade comes in handy, bringing about some quick and well choreographed fight scenes, full of dismembering slashes and blood splatters.

If the style and editing of these graphically violent moments are not enough to have you screaming, “THIS IS SPARTA!” then the look of the film just might.  While watching The Book of Eli I couldn’t get past the idea that this is what a baby produced by The Road and 300 would look like.  Other than the opening scene of the film, it is drenched in the usual bleak grays of a post-apocalyptic world, yet it manages to be a little more aesthetically pleasing thanks to the intensity in the contrast between the lights and darks.  And did you see those clouds?  There is some mention of a war and/or some event remembered as “The Flash,” and I have to wonder if it is to blame for the sky or if it was just a choice to make it look different than the dreary sky we have grown accustomed to in this genre.

The savagery of the people who have grown accustomed to living without the rules of a structured society is yet another thing that is not new to this genre, but the range of characters is still intriguing.  Denzel Washington does an excellent job on playing the different aspects of his role, alluding to the air of a monk in his civility and manners of the world that has long been forgotten by most, all the while still being skilled in fighting when violence is absolutely necessary.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gary Oldman plays Carnegie, the literate leader of the town whose one goal is to find a specific book, and it is fun to watch the degradation of his character as he gets more and more desperate to take it from Eli.  Eventually it isn’t just Eli who Carnegie must fight against once Solara joins him on his journey, and Mila Kunis does a really great job portraying the dichotomy of the world her character was raised in.  Not only does she have to play up the innocence and naiveté of someone who has not only been raised in a world removed of most technological advances, but her character is also sheltered from the dangers of the world outside her small town.  Because of this, it is fun to watch her interactions with a character as foreign to her as Washington’s Eli, as well as her growth as someone who must quickly learn to survive out in the real world.

Overall The Book of Eli presents a familiar world filled with characters, locations and dangers that we have all seen before.  Yet this is not to say that it is without surprises.  The ending brings new meanings to everything I thought I knew while watching, making a second viewing high on my priority list.

Final Grade: B+