Yay! Post-apocalypse! My favourite genre ever! Oh wait... I don't enjoy that at all... still, at least Denzel Washington is here with me.
So there's this book, and Denzel is trying to get it to the west, and Gary Oldman wants it... and that's pretty much the plot. Oh, and the book is the bible, because when the apocalypse happens, you're going to want religion to still be around... oh wait, no you don't.
But then, the movie doesn't make that point. In fact, Gary wants it to use it for himself, in one of the classic uses of religion (ie to justify the power base). However, everyone who is used to the post-apocalyptic world do not have anything like religion, they are too busy trying to survive to worry about what-ifs. And, not to give the ending away, but the ultimate place the bible is put is relevant for that society.
(That said, the moment of saying grace seems to infect Solara pretty quickly, despite that it means nothing to her. And I completely fail to buy the basic premise of all bibles being destroyed.)
Denzel Washington is good in this role (and I did have a few suspicions about his character, so was pleasantly surprised, rather than whiplashed surprised). Gary Oldman is just as good, but I'm surprised none of his underlings decided to take matters into their own hand.
The main fault with this movie (aside from some plot ideas) is that it is slow. Really, really slow. There are some panning shots which just pan... and pan... and pan... then pan some more... and then go slowly. The house shooting scene was interestingly done, but then it goes slow again...
Decent performances help this movie, the slowness kills it.
[END]
Tuesday 15 June 2010
The Eli of Book
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4 comments:
Haven't finished watching this, but I find it highly surprising that considering the amount of bibles around (Every hotel/motel room!) that they can't find one.
They make a point of saying "after the war, all the bibles were hunted down and destroyed."
Bollocks.
But they must have some paper-thin(ha!) premise for their movie.
I think it should have been a copy of Principia myself...
Hmmmmm, I also saw this one recently, must be something in the air.
Towards the end I wasn't paying as much attention to the film as I could have (yes, too slow for me too), so I'm a little unclear on this but.... how did he remember the book, did he have eidetic memory?
Why not read it out and record it on the ipod he carried with him? He was so protective of it at the beginning of the film that's what I thought was going on.
Must have had an amazing memory, helped by reading it so often (30 years?). Must have had amazing senses all around considering...
As for the iPod... didn't occur to him? Certainly never occurred to me. Aside from running out of power, didn't have much significance that I saw.
(Then again, who knows which of probably unteen revisions that got put in and the reason for it got taken out?)
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