The Book of Eli: A review: SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

JimRaynor

Golden Member
Sep 3, 2003
1,593
0
0
Do not read this if you don't want to know what happens in the movie!!! There are spoilers!
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The Book of Eli: Mad Max Goes from Doggie to Missionary

Desolate, Post apocalyptic setting? Check. Loner badass a la Mad Max? Check. Magic Bible? Uh... check?

The Book of Eli is the newest twist on the Mad max genre that has inspired cinematic masterpieces such as "I am Legend" and "Waterworld." Denzel Washington plays "Eli," a badass. With a magic bible. Yes, a magic bible. It's kind of like magic underwear for mormons, but way better cause it also gives you fantastic hand-to-hand combat skills. Naturally Commissioner Gordon wants to get his hands on it. At first you think he wants it for its powers of influence over people. After all, wars have been fought over religion, crusades even, the last bible on earth would be a powerful propaganda. But no, it's really magic.
Eli has been walking for 30 years, heading west as instructed to by the voice of... god? Or something like that. In real life a guy named Steve Vaught began his walk across the country April 10th, 2005 and ended it in Manhattan one year and one month later. Oh yeah, he weighed 410 pounds. I guess I didn't account for all that post-nuclear-war debris and random adventures along the way. I'm also assuming that he started on the east coast and not somewhere around the orbit of the moon; and that he can't walk on water. These could of course be possibilities, as the powers of magic bibles are not well known at this time.
During his journey, Eli witnesses a guy get shot point blank with a shotgun and then his girl gets raped by a bunch of dirty bikers. He wants to intervene... real bad, but he has to say to himself "Stay on the path, it's not your concern. Stay on the path, it's not your concern. Stay on the path, it's not your concern." Eventually he leaves to attend to things that are "on" the path and "of his concern"--like charging his ipod. Oh yeah and remember Eli is invincible so he coulda stopped a gang rape but, Eli really needs his tunes.
In this dystopian future, all bibles have been burned, or destroyed. All six billion of them. Yes, the most printed book of all time--the bible, has only one copy left in existence. That's like not being able to find a copy of "New Moon" by the time the DVD comes out. There's no soap, one shampoo, and food and water are just as scarce. The bad guys are always telling us there is no ammo, whenever Eli shows his piece they always remind us. "They're never loaded." Throughout the course of the movie though, every single gun we ever see is loaded. Even old people have pristine arsenals and MP7s at their disposal. For there being such a shortage of ammo, you would think you would want to conserve it and not use something like... a gatling gun.
Eli and his girl Solara stop by an old couples house for tea and strumpets at some point but decide to leave once they see they have "the shakes." Apparently when you eat too much human flesh you get this condition, that or you're just old, or have parkinson's.
In the end we find out that Eli's bible is..... written in braile!!! OMGWTFBBQ! So Eli is... blind? In fact we are "finding out" Eli is blind for about 20 minutes. Imagine watching "The Sixth Sense" and it takes half an hour for them to tell you that he's been dead the whole time. What a revelation.
Eli dies, not before reciting the entire King James Bible to the new ruler of Alcatraz, Solara takes his place, possibly with magic underwear, and implicitly begins her own march of dimes back east. In the end no one really cares.
 

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
3
71
tl;dr



Just say whether or not you liked it, quit pretending you're Nuclear Ned or some high strung reviewer paid money by a website
 

XZeroII

Lifer
Jun 30, 2001
12,572
0
0
Pretty aweful review. Did you write it?

A review of the review of The Book of Eli:
Whoever wrote that review obviously doesn't understand the movie. At times, we even wondered if english was his first language. The review kind of jumps around the movie, missed key points and was very overly dramatized. The author also doesn't have a firm grasp on the concept of time, exaggerating about 10 minutes (max) into 20.

I give the review 1 star out of 5. I believe that the author may have drank too much soda and needed to pee for the last hour and a half which is why he just didn't understand any of it.

In the end, no one really cared about his review.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,651
6,216
126
Pretty much sums up the movie. The Religious Bible theme makes it hard to enjoy, for me anyway, but overall the Movie creates a believable setting. I've read at least one person who compared it to Fallout 3 and in many ways that's an accurate description.

The only thing I disagree with was the Sightedness of Eli, he wasn't Blind. He had memorized the whole thing and dictated the contents to that Dude. The bad guy had the Bible, but it was useless to him because the one person who could read it feigned having lost the ability to.

At any rate, the movie was entertaining, but would have been much better without all the gibberish.
 

JimRaynor

Golden Member
Sep 3, 2003
1,593
0
0
Yeah I wrote it after seeing it last night. I spent all night working on it! I guess it's not really a review it's just me poking fun at a bad movie. Or what I thought was a bad movie. But I guess I just wasn't able to understand it like you were!
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,651
6,216
126
Yeah I wrote it after seeing it last night. I spent all night working on it! I guess it's not really a review it's just me poking fun at a bad movie. Or what I thought was a bad movie. But I guess I just wasn't able to understand it like you were!

He's just butt hurt cause you insulted Baby Jesus. :D
 

brblx

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2009
5,499
2
0
why do people even put religious crap into movies?

unless it's Cucumber and Tomato Bible Adventure (tm) or whatever, fundies are gonna hate it. and if it gets preachy, everyone else is gonna hate it.

pointless movie is pointless.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,651
6,216
126
The slow zoom on his clouded eyeballs implied to me that he was blind.

Hmm, I may have missed that. Could be I suppose, after all the whole premise of the movie was hard to believe, why not add in some other over the top angle?
 

james1701

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2007
1,791
34
91
How do you have a post apocalyptic movie and no nudity. I just don't know whats wrong with movie directors today.
 

Sadaiyappan

Golden Member
Nov 29, 2007
1,120
4
81
It was okay. Reminds me of fallout 3, the Road, I am Legend. I didn't like the beginning but it got better. Brought me to tears at the end.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,589
5
0
The slow zoom on his clouded eyeballs implied to me that he was blind.

Hmm, I may have missed that. Could be I suppose, after all the whole premise of the movie was hard to believe, why not add in some other over the top angle?

The blindness of Eli (if it was as the zoom implied) contradicts his ability to shoot (bullets and arrows)

The use of the blade I can understand because of the proximity, but not the shooting accuracy required.

Now, if he became blind while on the run, understandable - but I do not recall there being any shots of him outside without the glasses.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,848
146
After hearing that, I'm glad I skipped seeing this. The action didn't even look that good to me personally, and I kinda had the feeling the story was going to either be severely lacking or a major turnoff since they really shied away from it in all the trailers.
 

Gibson486

Lifer
Aug 9, 2000
18,378
2
0
Here is the plot:

Spent years under his brother's shadow. He Had one lucky year and won it all with a text book Hail Mary. Now he is back under his brother's shadow because he lacks a no. 1 accomplice.
 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
Not to mention it was one of the movies where all the good scenes were in the trailer. Honestly it felt like sometimes they just showed off CGI desert scenes to make a 15 minute movie into 1.75 hours.
 

The_Dude8

Diamond Member
Jan 8, 2000
5,167
1
71
The blindness of Eli (if it was as the zoom implied) contradicts his ability to shoot (bullets and arrows)

The use of the blade I can understand because of the proximity, but not the shooting accuracy required.

Now, if he became blind while on the run, understandable - but I do not recall there being any shots of him outside without the glasses.

Because blind ppl has super hearing; Why do blind ppl wear sunglasses? Can the sun really hurts your eyes when you're blind?
 

Newbian

Lifer
Aug 24, 2008
24,777
881
126
Spoiler...

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