Cinema Alliance Movie Reviews

At first I was a little sketchy on whether I liked this movie or not. To be honest, if a project like this makes me scratch my head on the first pass, it’s usually a good sign that I’ll like it.

Part of my trepidation was due to the religious overtones of the plot. The story is set somewhere in the future after an apocalyptic event (they keep referring to “the flash”) which left the country (world?) a decimated wasteland. The surviving population is comprised of people before the flash and those born after. The government is broken down, people are robbing and killing each other and everything is about survival. Technology has basically been reset and even things like books are considered a rare commodity. With that in mind, the basis of the film is set on the importance of one book that Eli (Denzel Washington’s character) is supposed to deliver to somewhere on the west coast. That book is the last remaining edition of the King James bible. Don’t worry, I didn’t spoil anything there, it’s no big mystery.

After thinking about the movie, the book really could be any book that falls in the same category as the bible, such as the Torah, the Koran, etc. What I took from the movie was more about faith, no matter whether you’re religious or not. I’m not religious, I don’t subscribe to any religion personally, I’m more on the spiritual side of the coin. So, I didn’t feel assaulted by the religious tones of this film as I never thought it was preachy. There are some twists here and there that reinforce my feelings as to the theme of faith rather than religion, which is what saved the film for me.

Visually, it’s very engaging as the post-apocalyptic world is convincingly created, accented by the interesting coloring of the film; it feels very raw and stripped down, yet futuristic. Lots of desolate themes in here and with the lack of rich color and sparseness, it works.

As far as talent, you can never go wrong working with Denzel Washington or Gary Oldman (who are both on my list of actors I hope to work with some day as they’re 2 of my favorites). Mila Kunis also does a great job in her supporting role.

The Hughes brothers do a great job steering the ship as they’ve brought together a good script, an excellent cast and a visually captivating canvas. All in all, I’d recommend seeing this one.

reviewed by Sean McKnight