Despite saying I'd wait for the DVD, I went to see Book of Eli tonight since my brother wanted to go. It was...watchable. The best thing about it was Denzel Washington, who lent the whole affair some credibility, Gary Oldman mostly chewed on the scenery [not that there's anything wrong with that]. The post-apocalyptic world was superbly realized and looked fantastic, although a lot of it was a bit too "I've seen this before" like the cannibal family and the bandit trap. One scene in particular was almost a carbon copy of the scene from Road Warrior where the two people get caught by the Humongous's gang and killed, the one where Mel Gibson watches from the top of the hill. The three action scenes were pretty cool but lasted about ten seconds as Denzel quickly dispatched of 4-5 bandits and then 8-10 bar patrons. The shootout near the end was pretty good, but is mainly just a frenetic shot from halfway between the two parties as they shot at each other with hundreds of bullets. Somehow Denzel and the woman don't get hit despite a ton of bullets going all the way through the house and they're just standing up against the wall beside a window. And the ending was just...out of nowhere. Suddenly there's this secret base at Alcatraz where the sum total of human culture and art and history is being stored. Also, Eli's blind and his bible was in grail. Just way too many things that were never mentioned anywhere else in the movie and just served to tie up all the loose ends left from the rest of the movie.
Watchable, but it's not great and it doesn't really tread any new ground.
