Joshua Knopp/ reporter
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The Book of Eli, despite the hype, has little to make it stand out as a film. The Book of Eli’s main fault is its lack of newness. It’s set in a post-apocalypse; its main character is a grizzled action hero nameless for most of the film; its villain is a black-and-white evildoer. The only thing that The Book of Eli adds to any of these thoroughly explored concepts is the Bible. But through most of the film, the Bible plays a stereotypical item of power and, while being an interesting and thought-provoking concept, adds nothing to make the story unique until the final five to 10 minutes which, further burying the Bible’s uniqueness as an item of power, were quite easily the worst minutes of the film. The counterpoint to these familiarities is that while Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and the Bible’s parts were in a struggle, they portray these parts well. Washington adds a tinge of faith without going overboard, something that the movie wouldn’t work at all without. Oldman, one of the best actors around, finds a way to make his iteration of the “Bad Guy” different from the last. The Bible, while it adds very little in the film until the last five-10 minutes, really might make people think about the power religion has had in the past and wonder if it will ever have that power again. This film is stereotypical, but those stereotypes work. These combined characteristics would make The Book of Eli an average film, but the final minutes seem long and abysmally maudlin. These minutes shatter one’s suspension of disbelief and take away from what was a good film.
