The Book of Eli on DVD (Blu-ray)

One of my LOVEFiLM installments this week was The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington.

Set in post-apocalyptic America it follows one man's path to protect a sacred book which will save mankind.
We learn that a voice had told Eli to head westward with the sacred book, which he had been doing for thirty years, and hijackers and cannibals who try to stand in his way are taken out with precision.

The fight scenes are really good and done with a certain Denzel ‘coolness’.

He arrives in a town where the leader, Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman), is searching for a copy of the Bible as he believes this will give him further power.  After discovering that Eli is in possession of a King James Bible he sets about taking it from Eli.  After a shoot out, a pursuit, a standoff and another shoot out, Carnegie eventually get the book only to discover it is written in Braille.

A wounded Eli still makes his way westward, with the help of his new companion Solara (played by Mila Kunis), and they finally arrive at Alcatraz.  In Alcatraz, Lombardi (played by Malcolm McDowell) and is collecting things from the pre-war civilation – books, music, art etc – so that they are one day able to try and rebuild society.
Eli announces that he has a copy of the bible (which they don’t have and we know that Carnegie has taken from Eli) and asks Lombardi to get a pen and paper.  Eli then begins to recite the Bible word for word from memory (unfortunately poor Lombardi has to write the whole thing out).

There are religious and political messages behind the film and showing how religion can be used for power in both good and bad ways.  However, when Eli is at Alcatraz they focus in on his eyes and I wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to believe that Eli was (warning potential plot spoiler) blind? There were a few comments throughout the film that looking back seemed to make more sense if he was but also some parts that would make it not very believable???

But anyway I liked this film and thought it looked great on blu-ray. 

I'm going to give The Book of Eli 3.5 hijackers out of 5.