The Book of Eli, 15, 117 mins
Cast: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Jennifer Beals, Ray Stevenson, Frances de la Tour, Michael Gambon Directors: Allen and Albert Hughes Genre: sci-fi thriller Rating: *** (out of five)
DON'T bother living for tomorrow, live for now, because the latter half of this century and beyond is devoid of hope.
Mankind will be undone by intolerance and arrogance with disastrous consequences.
Children of Men, Doomsday, I Am Legend, The Road, Terminator: Salvation and even the Pixar animation Wall-E all promoted a dystopian future in which the last vestiges of humanity feed off the weak and vulnerable. Sometimes literally.
Scripted by comic-book author Gary Whitta, The Book of Eli continues the journey towards earthbound purgatory, set in the aftermath of a great war which has reduced the planet to a lawless, unforgiving wasteland.
Cinematographer Don Burgess bleaches the screen of colour, providing directors Allen and Albert Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell) with a stark backdrop for their story of an enigmatic loner on a mythical quest.
They open in a forest, where the enigmatic messenger Eli (Washington) hunts down a hairless cat for food then continues on his odyssey to deliver a sacred book to survivors in the west.
He has guarded the precious tome for 30 years, knowing its pages contain the secret to civilisation's rebirth.
A despot (Oldman) knows about the book and when Eli strides into town, he enlists right-hand man Redridge (Stevenson) and his henchmen to get it by force.
When violence fails, the tyrant forces adopted daughter Solara (Kunis) to ply her feminine wiles on Eli to save her blind mother Claudia (Beals) from a beating.
Alas, the messenger steadfastly refuses to let the precious article out of his sight, warning, "Some people said it was the reason for the war in the first place."
The Book of Eli is an involving trek through a world irrevocably scarred by catastrophic destruction: broken highways littered with the shells of abandoned vehicles, makeshift towns full of thieves and murderers, seared earth as far as the eye can see.
The Hughes brothers enliven the sporadic action setpieces with directorial brio. An outrageously overblown final stand involves grotesque old-timers George (Gambon) and Martha (de la Tour) and a copy of Anita Ward's 1979 disco anthem Ring My Bell.
Washington endows his noble warrior with typical gravitas but the character's emotional arc is limited by his refusal to be moved by the plight of victims. "Stay on the path, it's not your concern," Eli whispers aloud to himself.
Oldman chews hungrily on the scenery with wide-eyed glee, as only he can.
Meanwhile, Kunis makes the best of a thinly sketched sidekick, who takes a leaf out of Sigourney Weaver's Alien book: when the going gets tough, the tough shoot or blow everything up.
It can be seen at the Hollywood Plaza.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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