Imagine this, it is the post apocalyptic world. Most of the books/records about our past and history have been destroyed, it is a Godless society and most people are illiterate. However, you have the last copy of the Bible and you are a Christian!
This, is the setting for the Huges brother's 2010 post-apocalyptic action film, Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington. Set in the futuristic post apocalyptic world, Denzel Washington plays the character of Eli, who is said to have heard God's voice, telling him to bring the last copy of the Bible in the apocalyptic world to a safe location on the west coast of USA. In the post-apocalyptic world, morality amongst people is practically non-existent, the society is extremly depraved, and most people can't read because most of the books were destroyed during the apocalyptic event. Eli travels on foot, and on his journey he demonstrated unparalleled survival and fighting skills. He arrived at a town where the main villain of the movie Carnegie (Gary Oldman) is trying to collect certain books where he thinks he can use to control people's minds and therefore, bring him power. After Carnegie found out that Eli has the last copy of the Bible, he went out of his way to try and take the Bible from Eli so he can use it, twist the words to bring power to himself. Without spoiling too much of the film, this is basically the plot of this movie. Quite interesting and original.
I don't think this is a Christian movie, but this is a movie that contains a lot of Christian values. For example, there is a scene in the movie where Eli realized that although he knows the Bible text by inside out, but he doesn't really put the words of God to practice and he needs to change his ways, and he taught a girl who can't read how to pray. Another theme is that Eli shows a lot of perseverance, he trusts that God will deliver and provide for him not matter what the situation is like in his whole journey. Also, the final narration of Eli at the end of the movie is really moving and really shows that Eli is a Godly man who serve the Lord whole heartedly. I was really surprised that such a movie came from Hollywood production, and I really enjoyed the film.
Final verdict:
Story 8/10 - The story is straight forward, but it is very original and contains great Christian themes, where Eli's character shows that he loves God with everything he has, and also the theme of how important it is that Christians should put the words of God into daily lives, instead of just treating it as an academic, intellectual exercise.
Cinematography 7/10 - The environments and design of the post-apocalyptic world is very well done, it really brought the feeling of decay and brokenness into the atmosphere of the movie. However, I didn't like the color and contrast as I thought a lot of the scenes were either too bright or too dark in color and light.
Sound 6/10 - The sound effect was great, but when the actor/actress were speaking the volume is very small, so I had to turn up the volume to hear the dialogues, but when the action scenes start the volumes become too loud and is really annoying.
Violence: Strong - The violence level in this movie is very strong, there are numerous scenes of decapitated limbs and such. It is definitely MA rated.
Sex/Nudity: medium
Final verdict 7.5/10 - Personally, I am NOT sure if Eli doing things because he thinks he physically "heard" God speaking to him is a good example for Christians to follow or not. But we do known that God speaks to us through the Bible, if we read, understand and want to put the words of God into practice with a heart of wanting to love/obey God then we can live according to Godly wisdom. There are great Christian themes in this movie. It's refreshing to see a Hollywood production that portray Christianity in the positive light for a change. But it has its flaws, mainly in the color contrast of the pictures and the soft dialogue volume. One must also be warned that the violence level is quite high. However, if you are over 16 I would recommend this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment