Movie to See: The Book of Eli
Watching this movie is kind of like watching an adaptation of the (awesome) post apocalyptic video game
Fallout 3. The
mood and the visuals are pretty much spot-on in that sense. You get a definite feel that the story is taking place in the
wasteland of the United States after all of the bombs have fallen and anarchy has taken over... or rather, anarchy, as directed
by the most powerful regional warlord, has taken over. In addition to the spot on aesthetic, it also just 'looks' good, as
we should all expect from high budget Hollywood movies. The look and feel of the movie is well paired with some fast paced
action, and good acting by our intrepid wanderers. In addition to the title role played by the almost always good Denzel
Washington, it also featured the always watchable Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beals, and the brilliant human-chameleon Gary Oldman.
All of the happy stuff aside, I must say that I was a bit dissatisfied
by the way this one ended. In my personal opinion,
the final reveal is just a tad unbelievable. Someone had spoiled the
ending for me, so I was kind of keeping an eye out for
the twist, but I'm not convinced the set up was solid enough to pull off
Eli's big secret. That might have been handled a little
better... although I do think it interesting that the "Book" of Eli has
so much power associated with it. There's probably
some truth to it, although I have to wonder just how useful it will be
in the hands of people who haven't had the
thousands of years of societal conditioning necessary to make it so
potent. But maybe that's just me...
Movie to Skip: Pelt
I'm not sure why Netflix thought I'd like this one, but I certainly could have passed. The problem is that
this movie desperately wanted to be both a comedy and a horror movie, but kind of failed at both. It wasn't scary and/or
graphic enough to be a slasher (for the most part), and it really wasn't funny enough to be a comedy. Most of the
comedy was just waaay too heavy handed. In fact, most horror movies, without even trying, are funnier than this one was.
For a B-movie, the acting was about as bad as you would expect, although they did manage to find a 'pretty' cast, not that
that really matters (especially when you're banging your head on the coffee table wishing it were all over...). A
completely skip-able flick -- although still a better alternative than watching late night re-runs of
Showgirls. But
then again, most things are.
