Apocalyptic movies – the review
May 10, 20102009 and a bit of 2010 were the years of movies that represent the end of world. We had “2012″ which showed us a biblical flood and no perspective, and two other movies which I will comment on and compare in the following post, because they have a similar story. Both “The Book of Eli” and “The Road” put in front of us the image of a poor and unwelcoming Earth after a major cataclysmic event. The event at hand is of no importance apparently, what is important is the “new world” and it’s rules.
01/15/2010
:Release Date: 11/25/2009
118′ :Length: 111′
6 : Personal Rating (1-10): 7
“The Book of Eli” I’ve wanted to see since I watched a teaser trailer a long time ago that I did not like, but because Denzel Washington was in it the movie just instantly became a “must”. When this one finally got out I started reading about it and “The Road” just appeared here and there. From a movie I did not care about because of the movie poster that did not speak to me I decided to watch this one also.
As I said the story in both movies takes place after a major leads to the destruction of Earth. In “The Book of Eli” it is referred to as the light or the war (leading us to think of a major nuclear war). “The Road” doesn’t give a name to the event, but whenever they speak about Earth as we know it they mention “before”, suggesting that something has happened. Actually this movie starts with images from when the event began but it does not reveal what it was.
The main idea of both films is that the main characters have to travel a path in an awful environment in order to reach a goal whatever that is, something like the journey of Moises and his people in search for the promised land.
Eli (Denzel Washington), the main character in the movie named after him, travels west in order to take a book there, so that the book will be safe. As we later find out, the book is the last copy of a Bible. In “The Road” a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his small son travel south hoping it will be warmer there.
From now on things start to get a bit different. Both our heroes have to face the same issues (cannibals, lack of water) but the ways they do it are two different stories.
Eli protects the most important thing in his life (the book) while shading blood. He is a fine tuned killing machine that manages to wipe out an entire bar full of bikers that want to kill him, just because he was not from around there.
The father protects the most important thing in his life (his son) by hiding from the cannibals or the “bad guys” and by teaching his son about humanity. He keeps a gun that has only two bullets just in case they need to commit suicide.
Both movies are built in tones of grey and show the impressive bridges in America being cut thru the middle due to the disaster. “The Book of Eli” shows a rather desert type of world, while “The Road” that Viggo travels is filled with forests and it’s raining most of the time. This leads me to the question: how the hell were they out of water if it rained that much? Also when speaking about imagery I have to say that even though both heroes have to travel under the threat of cannibals, the things that the father and son have to see are more shocking that you can imagine. Even so this doesn’t make the movie a horror one, but be prepared to see a basement full of skinny people being farmed in order to feed others.
While “The Road” focuses on presenting the humanity and how the character of men changes in this conditions, “The Book…” brings in front of us the actions of Eli and how he fights to take his task to completion. This is the main reason why I think Denzel’s movie is not a good one, because all those fighting scenes are exaggerated and the entire movie gives you a feeling of “what the f***?”
A big plus for “The Road” are the scenes that present past events. Usually I don’t like flashbacks and introspective features in movies but this ones are done quite remarkably and help you see deeper in the souls of the characters. Also in this flashbacks we meet the wife, played very well by Charlize Theron.
In terms of pluses I liked the ending of “The Book of Eli” which was a bit surprising, but the surprise in the end puts exaggerated events in an even more exaggerated light.
Both Denzel Washington and Viggo Mortensen play their parts really well and I have nothing to comment on this one, they did what their script asked them to do and did it to perfection.
All in all it’s not a complete waste of time if you watch “The Book of Eli” and “The Road” is a good movie to watch but be careful not to do so around children or women who get growsed easily.
There are a lot more things that can be said about the two movies but a debate can start in comments here or on the facebook page.
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