CJSF volunteer Jay Peachy reviews the new apocalyptic blockbuster starring Denzel Washington, this is what he says...

On January 15th, I attended the pre-screening of the Book of ELI featuring Denzel Washington.  This is a tale of the post-apocalyptic preservation of spirituality.  I had high hopes given that film starred a good actor and had an interesting premise for the times.  I must say I came out a little disappointed. Prior to the screening there was some live UFC like performance demonstration.  I didn’t really see the relevance in this and how this demonstration was connected to the film. Perhaps this set the table for me, though the rest of the crowd in the film seemed to enjoy the pre-screening performance. To give the film some credit, the cinematography and sepia toned imagery throughout the movie was appealing to me.  I suppose they were emulating a country western feeling, I saw myself looking for those references throughout the movie and I swear I saw rolling tumbleweed at one point.

Denzel Washington’s hand-to-hand combat is very Matrix like. Considering Washington is almost 60 his moves were pretty good, his acting in the movie was fair though I felt that his acting was not up to the caliber that I was used to seeing in Denzel’s other films’. Kunis plays the sidekick damsel; I found her dialogue a little anachronistic.  I would like to think pre-apocalyptic English classes would have evolved by then. However it seems like she was being groomed as the next Lara Croft, either that or Angelie Jolie recently adopted her. I felt that Jennifer Beals performance was nothing that extraordinary and that the conflict between her and Gary Oldman could have been a movie in itself. If you are going to go, don’t expect a spiritual awakening, it’s purely eye candy with a storyline that had good intentions but fell short of delivering them.