The Book of Eli.

I suppose that it's a little bit inappropriate for me to begin this new endeavor with an entry that doesn't fit the title. While The Book of Eli was far from perfect, hate it I did not. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I sat down to watch this film, but it sure as hell wasn't what I saw. The beginning of the film employed some very effective (while not original) visual styles and one rather impressive fight scene, in which the title character is established as a complete badass. Though for all of the filmmaker's attempts to develop and Eli, the audience is never truly engaged by his story or his quest. Several attempts were made to provide an intimate look at the character's past and his motivation, but all fell flat. While I'm on the subject of falling flat, Mila Kunis should have learned her lesson after her horrendous performance in Max Payne and opted to stop making action movies. Her performance not only fell flat, it was awful. Denzel Washington wasn't terrible, but as I mentioned a moment ago, one doesn't care about his character, or his quest. It's difficult to tell whether this was the result of inexperienced or inadequate direction or whether it was deliberate. One can only speculate. The one shining ray of light as far as performances go is Gary Oldman. He has always been one of my personal favorites to play a villain, and this role is no exception. Oldman made his character easy to identify with, and deliciously evil at the same time. I will give credit to the production team for creating a thought out, and somewhat original vision of a post apocalyptic world, and for developing an original story to go with it. Most post-apocalyptic visions downplay religion, if they mention it at all, but the attitude portrayed in The Book of Eli is, in my opinion much more believable. On the whole, I give Eli a score of 3, for a refreshing take on the post-apocalyptic.