Bar Stool Review of THE BOOK OF ELI

Ramblings: The Last Book (Hopefully) Of E-Lame

Final Proof: 1 Shot

You know how you drink with a Christian Fundamentalist preacher? He's all smiles and wearing this nice suit and he looks all shiny and polished and professional but he opens his mouth and no matter how hard he tries it's only after about three or words that he starts preaching away at you and you start beer barfing in your mouth and, sure, you could swallow it but you decide to spit it all over the Christian Funda-mental because he's an asshole and here you are just trying to enjoy yourself and have a good time and he's on his soapbox passing wind in your digs so he deserves the hate you spew all over him. The Book Of Eli is so like that.

Post-apocalyptic movies come in two categories. You got your hyper-realistic The Road and you got your hyper-fun Zombieland. What you got with The Book Of Eli is your hyper-poor The Road imitation remade by religious right Christian Conservatives.

Plus, i won't go into them all here because i don't wanna be a spoiler, but every other scene has at least one WTF moment. Seriously, there are at least ten times you'll gag because there's no oxygen how far they had to go to fetch this crap.

Yeah, this movie chaffs my ass more than leaky beer farts. The good guys are 100% good. The bad guys are 100% bad. Everything is black and white, and not just the color scheme and Denzel Washington / Gary Oldman. Oh yeah, and there's the 100% required 'twist' ending, and i'm not just talking about your intestines. The 'twist' isn't all bad, though, 'cause it'll give you and your date 2 hours of conversation while you go over the whole film talking about how nothing in the entire movie makes the twist remotely believable.

It's not total crap. The blue-gray & white filter worked well and the action scenes were passable. Ok, also Tom Waits shows up. i don't know how they tricked him into participating in this hour and a half religious commercial---i'm guessing he was brainwashed by Christian Science Jehovah's Mormons beside a dumpster in an alley behind a Denny's at 3am somewhere near Albuquerque where they shot this movie and damn, i wish they woulda shot this movie, shot it dead three times in the head to put it out of my misery.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 0 Shots

There's a rape and a half in The Book Of Eli. i hate rape scenes in movies. They're just a shortcut---at the expense of women---to setting up characters as bad guys. Rape scenes show a lack of imagination and, as everyone knows, i'm all about imagination. And women. Hot women. And sex. Any kind of sex. Rape has nothing to do with sex or hot women so it has no place in films.

No nudity in The Book Of Eli, either.

We do get some Mila Kunis (26), which is pro'lly the next best thing...

Speaking of cool, Jennifer Beals shows up here, looking almost as hot at 46 as she did in Flashdance.

As for the Silken Butterly (that fleeting image of beauty flitting across the scene in the break of a heart), The Book Of Eli offers us up stunt woman Heidi Pascoe, aka "Middle-Aged Woman".

Just in case some babes have stumbled into this post, i've got some dark chocolate (55) for you to nibble on...

...and a 51-year-old white 'russian' [ok, he's British but it's kinda the same thing, right?] for you to nurse.

Drink: 0 Shots

Unless you count 'water', and i don't unless it accompanies Scotch.

Rock & Roll: 0 Shots

Are you freaking kidding me? The Bee Gees for chrissakes.

Boring Technical Crap

Written by: Gary Whitta

Directed by: The Hughes Brothers (Albert & Allen)

Starring

Mila Kunis - Solara

Jennifer Beals - Claudia

Heidi Pascoe - Middle-Aged Woman

Denzel Washington - Eli

Gary Oldman - Carnegie

Bottom Line

Pretend this movie is like life after the apocalypse: Shoot yourself in the head to spare yourself the misery of experiencing it.