Click here for the review of The Book of Eli

SPOILERS must be tagged with the "SPOILER" tag!

At least this review gives me hope that the movie really is as ass-kicking as it looks

I'm ridiculously annoyed that it really is the bible he is toting around with him, and that its based on that, but I will prob still go see this for $6 at an early weekday matinee.

Gotta pay respect to Gary Oldman pretty much no matter what...

Yeah, that concerns me a little.

James -- is the Bible angle a vague one (i.e. "God is good and loves his people") or is it more direct? Do you feel like Bible-believers will appreciate the film's message?

....and you care about this because?

I'm not the most religious guy out there but I can care less about the message as long as it's not going to be shoved down our threats...like in Fireproof. Here, it just seems that action is going to be shoved down our throats and I'm fine with that.

Fallout 3, anyone? That's what this movie looks like.

This film definitely sounds interesting, and i'm not bothered by the focus on the Bible, even though i'm not even the tiniest bit religious.

I don't disagree with you, but there's a difference between a movie shoving it's ideas (religious or otherwise) down your throat and a movie that has strong opinions. In the case of ELI, that's what I'm wondering: does the film use the Bible as an easy, simple jumping off point by using it's apocalyptic imagery and stuff, or does it actually push a Biblical sort of message?

My roommate has been saying this since he saw the trailer

If I weren't a college student deep in financial woes, I would probably see this, but as is, I can't even afford to see Avatar again. I'll catch Book of Eli on DVD

because it feels like pandering....

I thought the trailers were interesting, especially the desaturated look of the film. But this sounds like a Netflix rental to me.

The plot point about the bible turned me off, not because of the potential religious message but because it's so unrealistic. That a post-apocalyptic society would burn their bibles is just not credible to me. If anything, such a society would be very conservative, and religious bible-thumpers would thrive.

Right you are. I've been waiting for him to play a bad guy once again for a long time now. I would've seen it even if it got 1star.

Btw, saw him on conan last night.... was great as usual. Did a spot-on De Niro impression. He's unbelievably good with accents that guy.

I do believe that Bible believers will appreciate the film's message. It's not vague at all.

I'm not religious; the use of the Bible didn't bother me. The incoherence of the screenplay during the final 20 minutes did, however.

I was actually responding to the other posters who mentioned it, not to your review, but i've seen so many incoherent endings before that they really don't bother me all that much anymore so that's really not a huge deal for me.

I find that attitude saddening.

If you went into a restaurant, ordered a steak, and the steak came out poorly cooked and poorly seasoned, would you say "well, I've had some bad steaks recently, so who cares?" or would you demand another steak? At the very least, wouldn't you avoid that restaurant in the future?

Aren't you concerned that you're so jaded to bad endings that you don't care anymore? I'm sure Hollywood execs love filmgoers with low standards, but shouldn't we be holding them to a higher standard?

and I find your attitude very annoying! why you even care about why I feel this way is beyond me and your analogy is a rather poor example as it's not even close to the same thing(plus it's also a poor example for the fact that I hate steak regradless of how it's cooked ) see whenever somebody mentions that the ending to a film I plan on seeing is incoherent, contrived, convoluted, etc then I start to expect the worst from the ending to said film, and becuase I expect the worst from it, usually it dosen't turn out to be as bad as I expect it to be after hearing so many negative comments about it, you get what i'm saying? And besides, some endings do still enrage me at how bad they are, but that dosen't happen as often as it used to, and frankly I REALLY don't see that as a bad thing, because most bad endings just aren't worth getting all worked up about IMO I still can't believe you care about something as insignificant as my view towards incoherent endings I mean seriously, don't you have better things to talk about?

If you don't want people to care about your opinions, don't post on a message board, homey. Talking about our opinions and discussing them is the whole point of this thing, so you taking offense to me doing that is rather silly.

My example is indeed a good one, because in both cases, some people don't care if the product isn't as good as it could be, and some people do.

I'm NOT saying that you should accept someone else's views on what makes an ending contrived or confusing or anything else. But you've admitted that in your opinion, some movies have bad endings and you don't care about that because a lot of movies have bad endings. I care about movies and what they can do, and I have standards. I don't expect perfection, but when a movie ends poorly because of filmmaker laziness or general incoherence, I have a problem with that.

Look, man, you've made the point that bad endings don't bother you as much as they used to. That's fine. Not everyone has to have high standards in the arena. But for me, seeing more and more bad movies doesn't jade me into accepting them, it only infuriates me that so many incompetent people are working in the industry and apparently don't care about the quality or originality of their product. And yes, I understand how hearing a lot of negative things about a movie can lower your standards going in, and therefore you might enjoy the movie a little more. But it doesn't make the movie, or its ending, any better.

Vex, it's well known that your standards for film aren't super high. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm not bashing your opinion. But every time someone disagrees with you you cry "WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT MY OPINION??" -- and that doesn't lead to real discussion. You ask me "don't you have anything better to talk about?" Indeed, I do. But I'm seriously asking you: why are you posting on here if you don't want anyone to respond to what you say?

Well if you disagree with me then that's just fine, I was simply asking WHY you disagreed with me or why you cared about my opinion, is that really such an unreasonable thing to ask? I wasn't being upset about being disagreed with, I was only asking why I was, there's a big difference, and anyways so your real upset about bad endings, so what? That dosen't necessarily mean everyone else is, cause like I said before, most of the ones i've seen just weren't really bad enough to be worth getting worked up about or thinking too much about them, one such example being Swordfish, even though I found the ending to that film really contrived and not nearly as clever as i'm sure the director intended it to be(though the alternate ending was definitely alot better), it still wasn't bad enough to inspire more then a raised eyebrow and an indifferent shrug from me. And most of the REALLY bad endings i've seen that pissed me off are from films that went straight to video anyways, and also i've enjoyed plenty of things that James has called incoherent and contrived, so therefore while I will expect the worst form the ending, i'll also hope for the best.