Behind the Scenes Awesomeness: The Fifth Element (1995)

Conceptual Artwork 

Concept Art by Jean Paul Mezieres

Conceptual art by Jean Paul Gautier for Ruby Rod, back when Ruby Rod was going to be played by Prince 

Conceptual Artwork for Mandashowan spaceship by Jean Giraud 

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Title: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Gary Oldman, Wynona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes, Billy Campbell

Dracula has been brought to cinematic life on more occasions than any other character. I mean sure there’s tons of James Bond movies, Frankenstein movies and Godzilla has its fare share of films (going on 28 as I write this)…but even more films have used the character of Dracula in one form or another. So it truly is one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, period. So naturally, the question inevitably arises: which of these adaptations is the best one? You ask me, my favorite, bar none is Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the character. It’s just so epic, so classy, so operatic, such a well rounded production. But once upon a time, producers and critics thought the film would end up being a major flop. They even went as far as calling it “Vampire of the Vanities” in allusion to that other major box office flop Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), some deemed it too weird and violent for mass audiences. Test screenings led to Coppola editing about 25 minutes of gory bits; of course Coppola must have been shaking in his boots, I mean, another flop? Even worse is the fact that Coppola was hoping that this film would save American Zoetrope, his film studio, which was in bankruptcy. Was Bram Stoker’s Dracula destined to become yet another flop in Francis Ford Coppola’s career?

"I...am...Dracula. I bid you welcome"

All the negative pre-release buzz for Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not without merits. True, Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest American directors who ever walked the face of the earth, but Coppola is also no stranger to box office disasters. For example, One from the Heart (1982) lost a lot of money as did Tetro (2009) and these are not the only turkeys in his resume. Thing is that even though some of Coppola’s films don’t exactly ignite the box office, you can’t deny their artistic merits. I mean, I look at films like Tetro and Youth Without Youth (2007) and I am mesmerized by them, I love every second of both of these films, but I also realize they are not for everyone. I recognize how incredibly ‘artsy fartsy’ they are and how they can in no way be considered “commercially viable” films, but damn, aren’t they beautiful films when you really look at them? Same goes for many of Coppola’s films, and that’s probably what producers and critics feared would happen with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they feared it would be another expensive, beautiful and artful flop. At the end of the day, awesomeness prevailed and so the film went on to make a hefty profit worldwide, saving Coppola and his studio in the process. I guess you can’t really compete with quality. A good film is a good film, and audiences recognized that in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Amongst the ever increasing amount of Dracula films, Coppola’s take on the character still stands at #1 for me for various reasons. The first reason is that it’s such a great production, I mean; here we have the cream of the crop in every single department. It’s not surprising that the resulting film is such an artistic tour de force; Coppola gathered amazing talent to bring his vision to life. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was such an exquisite film that it marked one of the very few occassions in which a horror film actually got some recognition by the Academy, the only other one I can remember was Silence of the Lambs (1991). Bram Stoker’s Dracula ended up winning three academy awards in the areas in which it excels the most: costume design, sound editing and make- up effects; but  If you ask me I would have also given them the Oscar for art direction, because it excels on this as well, the sets are wow, beautiful, epic, like the old Universal Horror Films where everything was huge! One look at this film and you can tell it was done with great care and interest in making something that we’d never been seen before. Coppola managed to evoke a feeling of other worldliness, there’s always something not right, just a little off, as if the natural rules of physics did not apply. Coppola wanted the film to be bathed in a strange, surreal vibe  every time a vampire appears. This is why, when we are in Dracula’s castle, characters walk on walls, shadows seem to have a life of their own and water drops fall upwards instead of down.  

And the cast, well, for me it’s beyond amazing save for the one weak link known as Keanu Reeves. On his behalf I will say that Keanu was worn down when he made Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he’d just made three films in a row! Those films were Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991), My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Point Break (1991)! Nowadays Keanu recognizes his fault and excuses himself for his poor performance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; he admitted “I just didn’t have anything left to give”. But getting past that whole Keanu Reeves thing, the rest of the cast does an amazing job in my book. Gary Oldman is fantastic as Count Dracula. Some people don’t seem to enjoy his performance for whatever the reason; probably because the film is a bit on the theatrical side. Some of the performances might feel a bit over the top or overtly melodramatic to some viewers, but to be honest, it’s what I like about this version of Dracula. Characters seem to feel more intensely, love without control, and in my book, this makes all the perfect sense in the world because when we really look at it, this is a passionate love story. This is a movie that speaks of the kind of passion that will blind us and make us go crazy with lust and desire, so lines like “take me away from all this DEATH!” and “The blood is the life!” are spoken with the appropriate amount of intensity in my book. Mina and Dracula really feel for each other, their love is not an ordinary love; this is a love that transcends both time and death! The rest of the cast is astoundingly good, of special note is Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, who plays the character diametrically opposed to Oldman’s Dracula. This Van Helsing loves food, life, singing, dancing! He is full of life, as opposed to Dracula who represents death and decay.

I love how the film serves as an allegory for the sexual politics between male and female. For example, Mina and Lucy are characters that are in the prime of their youth; looking forward to getting married and exploring their sexuality by reading the Kamasutra. Both young girls are curious about sex and its many possibilities, there’s even a hint of bisexuality in them when they share a secret kiss. So when an experienced dog like Dracula comes along and shows them how it’s done, they experience this sexual awakening and suddenly it’s a whole new world for both Mina and Lucy. Dracula has always been a character that’s representative of mans sexual impulses and this film is no exception. On this film Dracula satisfies his purely physical desires with Lucy, but it’s with Mina that he finds true love. So the film points this out to us, the difference between a physical relationship, based solely on sexual pleasure and a relationship that has its foundations on love. 

One of the things I love the most about this film is how Coppola approached the production, the whole mentality behind making it. Coppola wanted to hearken back to the old days of filmmaking, actually, Coppola originally wanted to make this film with impressionistic sets, using a lot of lights and shadows, similar to what had been done in German Expressionistic cinema with films like Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), of course the studio denied it, but he still went about making this film in the same way movies where made back in the old days, when cinema was just getting started. He wanted to use modern special effects techniques as little as possible. 

Coppola was given a special effects team which he ended up firing after they didn’t agree with his approach. He ended up using his son, Roman Coppola for the visual effects of the film which consisted in the usage of miniatures, matte paintings, forced perspective, mirrors…techniques as old as filmmaking itself. To be honest, the film looks way better than any of the CGI we see so often in today’s films. The miniature work is incredibly well done, so much so you probably won’t even realize when they are being used. On the makeup effects department, well, I have to give Kudos to the ones responsible; the makeup effects work is superb here as well! Same as in most Dracula films, the Count takes various forms, but my favorite has always been this giant vampire bat; the way this creature looks in the film always knocks my socks off, it’s one of my favorite cinematic monsters ever, top that amazing makeup effects work with Oldman’s performance and great sound effects and you’ve got yourself one amazing scene. But then again, the film is filled with many show stopping moments that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that Coppola’s Dracula is an amazing feat of filmmaking. It takes Dracula out of the campiness of the old Hammer movies and puts him right in the middle of a class-a big budget production, and I savored every last bit of this bloody good time. This is a highly regarded film in my book, perfect for a night of old fashion, passionate horror.  

Rating:  5 out of 5

Leon (1994)

Title: Leon (1994)

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman, Danny Aiello    

               

The most controversial aspect of Luc Besson’s Leon (1994) is the suggested romance between Mathilda, the 12 year old girl who wants to become an assassin, and Leon, her protector and mentor. Mathilda is a little girl who lives in a very troubled household in which everybody is always screaming at each other, everybody spews hatred, you know, you’re a-typical ass backwards dysfunctional family. Mathilda’s father even steals cocaine from his drug dealers and therefore places his entire family in jeopardy! Of course Mathilda hates living there, which is why she spends most of her time outside of the house, smoking cigarettes behind her abusive father’s back. One day, Mathilda’s father has to answer to a crooked DEA officer about some missing cocaine, and since the coke never turns up, Mathilda’s father is killed, and so is her entire family! Lucky for Mathilda, she was out in the convenience store buying milk for Leon. One thing leads to another and Leon ends up taking Mathilda, unwillingly at first, into his life. Will this new lifestyle workout for Leon?  Can he take care of something else other than himself?  

So why does a little girl fall in love with a man three times her age? Well, she develops feelings for Leon because he protects and cares for her, something she never got from her family. Leon also ends up saving her life at one point. He doesn’t slap her around the way her father did either, so she begins to fall for the guy even though he is considerably older than she is. Relationships with huge generational gaps are not unheard of in cinema, examples of this are Kubrick’s Lolita (1962), Adrian Lyne’s Lolita (1997), Harold and Maude (1971) and Birth (2004). But after a test screening in L.A. in which the audience reacted negatively to Mathilda’s advances towards Leon, these elements were deemed too racy and so director Luc Besson decided to edit the film in order to omit those Mathilda/Leon scenes that displayed some intimacy between the characters. Jean Reno says he wanted to portray the character of Leon as slow of mind, as a character who wouldn’t even think about having a relationship with Mathilda; this element of Leon comes across exactly like that. He is shocked beyond measure when Mathilda confesses her feelings to him. In reality, Mathilda’s affections come off as childlike and more than likely misguided, but you get the vibe that her feelings are of genuine affection for Leon. If you watch the American version of the film entitled ‘The Professional’, then you are getting the edited version. You’ll get less scenes of this interplay between Leon and Mathilda, but if you get the deluxe edition, then you’ll see a bit more of what goes on between them, which by the way is not in bad taste, Luc Besson handles things extremely well displaying Mathilda’s affections, which come off as nothing more than a harmless child hood crush. 

  

The film was also edited in other ways, for example, the character of Mathilda is a 12 year old girl who wants to become “a cleaner” or a hired assassin. So we have scenes of Mathilda cleaning her guns, dismantling a gun and putting it back together again, we even have a scene in which she threatens to kill herself by putting a gun to hear head. Images of kids handling guns in a film are always a risky because it’s an idea that will be seen in a negative light by ultra conservative audiences and the Motion Picture Association of America. Why? Because it’s an idea that we don’t want to propagate; the idea of children carrying instruments of death. If you choose to show scenes such as these on your film, you have to make sure that it is justified or else your film will more than likely get flamed by critics and moral snobs. Many times a film will receive a cold reception at the box office if it gratuitously displays children handling guns in one form or another. For example, Irving Kirshner’s Robocop 2 (1990) got a lot of heat because it depicted a 12 year old kid running a drug cartel, cursing like a sailor and shooting machine guns. The Monster Squad (1987) suffered from the same malady; on that one we have kids stabbing female vampires square in the chest and a character called ‘Fat Kid’ loading a shotgun, cocking it and shooting The Monster from the Black Lagoon with it. Most recently, Kick- Ass (2010) and its sequel Kick Ass 2 (2013) also got criticized for the character of Hit-Girl, a gun totting, sword carrying teen. But while the violence in some of these films I’ve mentioned might come off as gratuitous (yet tons of fun to watch) on Leon it feels justified. Mathilda feels threatened by the world she lives in, she was abused physically by her own father, she lost her entire family to a mad man and now avenging her little brother’s death is what drives her.  She has nowhere else to go, and the only father figure she knows is an assassin named Leon, you do the math. I say Mathilda is a character that speaks volumes about adapting in the wake of adversity.  

True, the scenes in which Mathilda asks Leon to train her to become a killer and the subsequent scenes in which he actually takes her on an assignment to kill somebody will probably result shocking to some, to me it’s just a movie with high entertainment value and good ideas. I like it when a film attempts to shake me up a bit. But behind the controversy and the violence, at heart there is a good film about two people who actually need each other. Mathilda obviously needs Leon for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but Leon is an extremely lonely man. When he is not killing, he is training or going to the movies, or cleaning his plant, which he calls his best friend. At heart, we have a man whose life is empty and sad; a man who needs the light that Mathilda brings to his life. There are some great scenes where both characters are simply having fun being all silly and goofy around each other, lightening up their lives as best they can. So the film isn’t as violent as you might be led to believe, it’s actually a sweeter film then it is violent.

An astounding element of this film is the cast; starting with Natalie Portman who was 11 years old when she was cast for this film. The numerous array of emotions she conveys on her performance is amazing and made even more amazing when we take in consideration how young she was 11 when she made this film. The casting director was going to say no to Portman because she was so young, but when Besson saw her audition, he gave her the part! The film basically revolves around the character of Mathilda so the right casting of this role was essential.  The young actress who would embody Mathilda needed to convey a plethora of emotions necessary for the part. In my opinion, they couldn’t have made a better choice than Portman, who is amazing here. There’s this awesome scene where Mathilda is getting drunk in a restaurant…awesome stuff, in some scenes she's terrified, in others she's crying beyond redemption, she really displays a whole spectrum of emotions. Gary Oldman is an amazing actor who used to play a lot of villains earlier in his career and this is one of his best ones, if you ask me, Oldmans character on this film is right up there with ‘Drexl’ from True Romance (1993) in terms of craziness. Oldman is bat shit insane on this film, even more so when he takes his pills! In turn, Jean Reno plays his character with a cool mellow vibe, he’s got a childlike innocence to him; he will be the nicest killer you’ve ever met. Funny how this film makes you feel empathy for a cold blooded killer!

The idea for Leon came to Besson while making La Femme Nikita (1990), if you notice, both films share a few similarities, starting with the fact that they are both about women who want to become killers. On La Femme Nikita, Jean Reno also plays a killer who even dresses in the same fashion as Leon. Besson always felt that he could expand on this character, center a film around the killer, so he wrote Leon, always having Jean Reno in mind for the part. Funny how this film was the film that Besson made while waiting for Bruce Willis’s schedule to clear up so he could finally film The Fifth Element (1997) with him. In the interim between that waiting, Besson wrote Leon and shot it! The Fifth Element was a dream project of Besson’s, yet it is Leon, the film he made in between his big dream project that is considered to be the superior film. Me? I say they are both good on different levels, each good within their genre. So my final words is, if you haven’t seen Leon, do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s filled with awesome performances all around and let’s not forget, this was Portman’s breakout performance! She does an astounding job in this film, you’ll love her character, a little girl who struggles to survive as best she can in this harsh world.  

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Title: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Cillian Murphy

Review:

The Dark Knight Rises is an event movie, the kind that comes along rarely, not only because of the excitement behind seeing this final installment of the film, but also because of the tragic events that surrounded the premiere of the film. As most of the world already knows, On July 20, 2012 in a Century 16 Cinema in Aurora Colorado, a psycho by the name of James Eagan Holmes entered a theater during the premiere of the film and while wearing a gas mask, threw a smoke bomb into the theater and started shooting randomly at people who where there simply to enjoy the latest installment of the Batman franchise. He managed to kill 12, and injure 58 others. What was he trying to say by doing this? What was his purpose? Did he hate movies or people going to see them in droves? Whatever was running around that guys head, he was seriously disturbed. Did he feel he was one of the villains in the Batman films? Did he not learn to differentiate between reality and fiction? Between entertainment and real life? Whatever the case, this disturbed individual probably had a half-baked idea of what he wanted to say swimming around his brains; all villains do.

James Eagan Holmes; getting what's coming to him

You see in films, the villain is commonly used as a way of pointing towards something that is seriously wrong in the world we live in, and the results that this ailment can bring upon society. Take for example ‘The Joker’ in Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). In that film the character was angry at the importance that the world gives to money, and how the society we live in revolves around it. One scene has the joker burning a mountain of money simply to show how little he cares for it; and he burns it with gasoline, just to be poetic and comment on how oil and money are entwined in the world we live in. The Joker pitted people of Gotham against each other just to show that humanity is selfish, that in the end, all we really care about is ourselves. Villanous? Sure, but you have to admit the character is making a point. This guy who killed 12 people in the theater, what point was he trying to make? By telling the police he was The Joker, he’s saying that he saw himself as a villain trying to make a point. Was he commenting on societies obsession with movies and entertainment? Was he saying films blind us from reality? That we are not living our lives and instead we are wasting it in a movie theater? 

If that was his point, then he was wrong. Sure Hollywood can be shallow and is often times filled with empty spectacles, but The Dark Knight Rises was not one of those films. This film had a lot to say, it is in my humble opinion a very important film. Same as The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises says a lot about the way the world is NOW. Thematically speaking, The Dark Knight Rises is all about the class war, a very heated topic these days, considering how middle class in the world is quickly fading away. Currently, you are either ridiculously rich or obscenely poor and that’s the way the powerful like it. Through the dynamics between Batman and Bane the film speaks about the struggles of the working class, the oppressed and the ever going hatred for the dudes running Wall Street. The status quo of the world today shows us that it’s true, a part of humanity is selfish instead of giving. It thinks only of itself and not of the needy, the less fortunate. Sadly, the rich and powerful are not currently thinking about making this world a better place for everyone, they think about making it a better place for them, and how those who have less then them can serve them. These are the themes that The Dark Knight Rises tackles with great precision and assuredness. This film knows what it wants to talk about, and it says it very clearly, through its villain, Bane. So this isn’t just any stupid little comic book film, nope, this film is bombastic, epic; a mesmerizing film that  has important issues to adress.

Christopher Nolan in my opinion has made his best film to date with The Dark Knight Rises. Technically speaking, his films have always been top notch and this one is no exception, but what I loved the most about The Dark Knight Rises is how fleshed out the characters are. I was missing the time when great villains dominated a film, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger are good examples of the kind of performance I like to see from a villain in a film; and I have to thank Nolan for making that special effort to build these memorable villains. Case in point: Tom Hardy’s Bane can now proudly stand next all those great villains of cinematic history. We hardly see Tom Hardy’s face in this film, save for a small flashback scene, his face remains hidden behind a mask for 99% of the films running time, yet Hardy’s performance shines through none the less. The character itself is extremely fleshed out, his back story is a very satisfying one. As a comic book fan, I was particularly thrilled to see moments from the storylines Knightfall, Knights End and No Mans Land on the screen.

DC Comics Batman # 497, one of the comics that inspired the storyline for The Dark Knight Rises. 

This is the third time Christian Bale has played Batman, I enjoyed how this time around he is a beaten, reclusive character, hiding away from the world in his mansion, like Mr. Kane in Orson Welle’s Citizen Kane (1941), the rich old guy who doesn’t want to answer to the world outside. It was great of the filmmakers to use the Bruce Wayne character to criticize the rich and powerful. If you have so much power, so much money, why not do something worthwhile with it, something that will improve humanity and the world we live in? Loved it how the movie tackled those themes through Bruce Wayne. It was a very intelligent move on the filmmaker’s side to comment on classist issues with the character, considering how the rich are viewed by the working class that’s struggling to get by on a day to day basis in this greedy world we live in. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman was somewhere between sexy and deadly, but nothing as overtly sexualized as Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on the character in Batman Returns (1992). The rest of the amazing cast does an amazing job, Michael Caine turns in an emotional performance on this one.

On the fun side of things the film delivers in spades. It was great to see a film that balanced action set pieces with story development so well; this really is a well though out picture, Mr. Nolan went up a couple of notches in my book with this one. Where the first two Nolan Bat films seemed a little on the talky side, this one balances fleshing out its characters and wowing us with amazing action and visual effects to perfection; kudos to Nolan for achieving that so well. So that’s it ladies and gents, I say don’t let the whole shooting thing scare you from seeing this one. It truly is a great film that touches up on important themes. This is an event picture, the kind you want to go to the theater to celebrate the fun of watching movies; don’t let the isolated incident with the crazy kook scare you out of that my friends! There was a special kind of electricity in the theater before and after the film started, people were genuinely excited to see this one. From what I can gather and from the resounding round of applause that I heard after the film was over, this one has won audience approval. The momentum these films have captured since the first film premiered has exploded on the screen with The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in Christopher Nolan’s Bat Saga; don’t let what that psycho did in Colorado scare you away from enjoying this awesome film.

Rating: 5 out of 5 

The Book of Eli (2010)

Title: The Book of Eli (2010)

Directors: The Hughes Brothers

Cast: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon, Tom Waits

Review:

Most post-apocalyptic films play with the same themes and situations over and over again. In these films, most of the time humanity is fighting for gasoline, water or food. The main preoccupation in many of these films is to simply keep the human race going, to not let the light of humanity fade away. So many times, procreation plays a big part in these films. And most of the time, it’s humans vs. humans, humanity as their own greatest enemy. And I’m not saying The Book of Eli is the most original post-apocalyptic film ever, because it isn’t. It actually plays with many of the genre trappings we’ve come to expect from post-apocalyptic films. But fear not! The Book of Eli actually displays a glimmer of originality! To my understanding, this is the first post apocalyptic film to address issues of religion and belief as an integral part of its plot. That I remember, only one other post apocalyptic film does this (albeit in an extremely superficial manner) and that was Enzo G. Castelliari’s Italian flick The New Barbarians (1983), a film in which a religious sect called ‘The Templars’ is in a mission to wipe the earth clean of those they don’t consider worthy. The Book of Eli addresses religiosity a bit differently and in a more profound way. It’s nowhere near as cheesy or unintentionally funny as The New Barbarians was.

In The Book of Eli we meet a lonely nomad named Eli, he wanders the world all alone, same as the main characters in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and The Postman (1997). On his treks across the lonely quiet earth, Eli stumbles upon the usual gang of crazies that a loner will encounter in these types of films, you know, rapists, cannibals, and all around undesirables. Finally, Eli comes upon a town that’s trying to re-emerge from the ashes of the post apocalyptic world, trying to re-establish civilization and regain some normalcy. The towns’ leader, a man called Carnegie says that he needs a book in order to give the people of his town some hope; this book is the bible! And it seems that Eli has the only copy in existence! Eli uses the bible in a benevolent manner, while Carnegie wants to use it to control and manipulate his people. He sees the bible as a weapon that can be used to manipulate the minds of the weak. Apparently, this is a world that’s so far down the apocalypse, that they’ve forgotten all about religion. Too bad for Carnegie that Eli, same as The Blues Brothers (1980) themselves were, is on a mission from God. Eli says that one day; God talked directly to him and told him where he needs to take the book. So it is Eli’s mission to take the bible to this safe heaven. He tries not to get distracted, but this is something that is getting increasingly difficult for Eli, especially when Carnegie gets a whiff of the bible! Then it’s a race to the finish, will Carnegie get Eli’s bible? Will Eli get the bible to its ultimate destination?

So of course, this being a film that addresses religion, I was immediately interested. I find religion fascinating in many ways, though I don’t subscribe to any belief system. In fact, to be honest, I had not seen this film yet precisely because it was about the bible. I don’t particularly enjoy films that are preachy or try to convince me of how important faith and religion are, because I myself am a staunch non-believer. Im one of those guys who believes that religion is one of the greatest evils in the world. But thanks to this post-apocalyptic themed thing I’m currently conducting here, well, I decided to finally give The Book of Eli a chance a good thing because I actually found myself enjoying it. It reminded me of Alex Proya’s Knowing (2009) in the sense that it’s not exactly preachy. I mean you can either believe Eli was protected by God; or not. You could choose to believe he just really believes in the bible, and it's all in his head, or that God is actually protecting the guy. In the film, Eli represents the true believer; the guy who believes God can and does talk to him; that every word in the bible is worth following to the letter. Yet Eli is a mild mannered humble man; the quintessential good soul who looks forward to doing more for others than he does for himself. I guess he represents that balanced Christian who doesn’t crossover to the dark waters of fanaticism. Carnegie on the other hand represents that evil soul that chooses to use faith in an evil manner like the Jim Jones’ or David Korechs’ of our modern world. The guy who wants to manipulate and benefit from the weak minded. In other words: evil personified. At the same time, the film wisely uses the villain to state many truths. This is something that many films have done in the past and usually happens when a message or a theme is extremely controversial. You get the crazy guy to say it. Or the villain, but that crazy guy kind of makes sense sometimes don’t he?

Aside from its interesting exploration of religion, the film does have a fault or two. I think it needed just a bit more action to it. As it is, this is not a very exciting film, which is really the films only real fault. It does have its action scenes, but they are few. It was cool to see Denzel kicking ass, he actually trained a lot for this role, he did all the fighting sequences himself. But at heart, this is more of the kind of film that wants to explore its themes, and so we get characters having these conversations that explore the ideas of God and faith. The film wants us to believe that God is protecting Eli through out his journey; that the bible is the greatest book ever written, when in reality, it’s a very convoluted book with many, many contradictions. And don’t get me started on the things that don’t make sense about it. But on this film God makes it a priority to spread this book around so the confusion can start all over again! Why not write a new book through Eli who obviously functions as something of a prophet in the film? But no, according to the film, God decides to give the same old bible, with all it’s confusion to the world all over again. The way I saw it, the film states that faith is something that can help us move along through life, to get through it in a less painful manner; with a bit of hope along the way. In one moment of the film Solara, the female character that ends up following Eli around asks him “How do you know that you’re walking in the right direction?” and Eli replies: “I walk by faith, not by sight. It means you know something, even if you don’t know something. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s faith, it’s faith. It’s the flower of light in the field of the darkness that’s giving me the strength to carry on, you understand?” I prefer not to go through life lying to myself. Reality is best for me, it keeps me grounded in something tangible, real. My thoughts don’t drift away to some fantasy land just so I can keep my cool, like some kind of drug to cool me off from the craziness in the world. I find my cool by looking for solutions to my problems, and if I can’t change them, then I adapt to them and keep on moving. But that’s just me, if religion and the bible works for you, coolio my friends!

I found it interesting how Eli says that the voice he heard came from inside of him because I’m sure this is what happens with most people who say they’ve heard the voice of God. They want to believe so much, that they end up hearing voices in their heads, in their dreams. I have faith of a different manner; I choose to believe that humanity will eventually evolve, improve and pull itself out of the darkness if we only leave greed behind and learn from our mistakes. I think we can rely only on ourselves to do what we gotta do in the world,  I believe in myself and the idea that I can achieve my goals in life if I put my mind and strength to it. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but then again, so is faith in invisible beings we never hear or see. Still, The Book of Eli was an enjoyable post apocalyptic film. It has A-list actors, two directors who have proven themselves to be good in the past (The Hughes Brothers) and who by the way turned in a great looking film and finally, the film had a decent budget which is a rare thing in the world of post apocalyptic films. In other words, an enjoyable flick that explores faith, if you don't mind the preachy side, then you should have yourself a fine time.

Rating: 4 out of 5