Blood and Bible

Lacking depth, The Book of Eli becomes a blur of violence | Daniel Olasky

David Lee/© 2009 Alcon Film Fund, LLC/Warner Bros. Pictures

LOS ANGELES—In a post-apocalyptic landscape, a man walks alone down an empty road. With the ruins of past civilization all around him, he is forced to fight for survival, both against the cruel and unforgiving terrain and against the lawless and violent desperation of his fellow man.

Sure, we've seen this movie before, but in The Book of Eli there's a difference. Our lone traveler, the Eli of the title (Denzel Washington), isn't on a journey to personal safety. He's on a mission from God, to carry the last surviving copy of a King James Bible west, to a place where it will be safe, and from which its message can spread.

It's a harsh world Eli walks through. A war (origins largely forgotten) ripped a hole in the atmosphere, allowing the sun's rays to scorch almost all life off the planet. Eli and other survivors wear dark goggles to protect their eyes and scavenge endlessly for water (the planet's most valuable commodity). Thieves, killers, and cannibals roam through barren wastelands that have few animals and no plants. (Eli seems to live on a diet of cats.)