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Rottenwatch: Book of Eli (GAF meltdown incoming?)

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Liked the movie, and why can't people see that this was a fiction. It don't have to be explained how he's able to shoot people, and how exactly he's protected from bullets. I thought of it like he had super hero luck/powers. It's a comic book type of character. How is it that Spiderman can climb walls after being bit by a radioactive bug, people that went through radiation treatment should be making super food when they eat. Him being protected and able to fight like that made the movie entertaining.

Inception is going to have a lot to explain to GAF. :lol

Back to the movie, when he came to that lady with the cart asking for help I immediately thought about the ambushes in Read Dead Revolver hah, and when the bikers road into the city I was reminded about outlaws. This movie is pretty cool how it's like a western and other things. Very well made.

Seeing that old lady had the shakes was creepy. What was in that tea hahaha, and that meat "Look we found some meat". Wow

moojito said:
Yarr, a very stylish film. I loved the silhouetted style fight under the bridge. And of course the twist at the end made me immediately want to watch it again to see if I should have known all along. Very well done :lol
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I really liked that fight. It was the first display of ability by Eli and I was kinda worried that he'd be jacked up or injured. Before he get there you see all of his scars and burns. So he was either a crappy fighter or he been through too many fights/bad situations.
 
finally got to see this last night. really great. Oldman practically made my blood run cold.

I might start a new Fallout 3 game and make my character Eli. :D
 
Whitta you have so much to be proud of man.

My wife and I both watched this film last night and there are some great, great things in this film. I don't care what the reviews say, this really was a great movie that we both thoroughly enjoyed.

I have yet to read through this (admittedly) long thread to see some other folks' impressions, but I really liked the innocence of a lot of the characters when presented with the idea of a God or higher power.

A few plot holes (we thought):

- Beginning of the movie when Denzel finds a man hanging himself and takes his shoes: when he first discovers the body, the closet opens and he jumps back, as if he 'saw' the body - he would have smelled it sooner, or not freaked out as much. Everything else fell in line with the whole 'blind' thing except for this part here.

- What training had Solara had that would qualify her to take on this crazed world? I see the point of 'move and act by faith and you will be protected', but still... We would have liked to see a bit more than her packing up and leaving.

Other than that I like it. A lot. A strong 8/10 for me!
 
Thats funny that I see this thread after I saw the movie this past weekend. I liked it. I have some outstanding questions about Eli's character that I'll go back through the thread to try and answer. The only thing that didnt sit with me well was Solara, and her character. I dont know if its the actor/(actress) that played her wasnt up to snuff, but the ending kind of fell flat because I didnt 'bye' into her character, and I didnt think she was capable of going back all by herself.
 
i cant find the official thread, so fuck off.


I'm watching the movie right now, and god does it feels like Fallout - The movie :lol. It's pretty stylish but i'm pissed off that he left those people to be killed/raped by the bikers. I'm aware of the twist, and he's not acting like that at all.
You can see him looking at people and etc..
It's a good effort tho. Enjoyable entertainement.
 
shuri said:
i cant find the official thread, so fuck off.


I'm watching the movie right now, and god does it feels like Fallout - The movie :lol. It's pretty stylish but i'm pissed off that he left those people to be killed/raped by the bikers. I'm aware of the twist, and he's not acting like that at all. You can see him
looking at people
and etc.. It's a good effort tho. Enjoyable entertainement.
Click to expand...

I think this is the official thread. And I'd have spoilered that.
 
Watched week ago. I thought it was pretty good. I didn't figure out that he was
blind
 till the end. :/

also great fight scenes.
 
Just watched the blu-ray (great looking and sounding disc) and I enjoyed it, a very interesting movie. I was totally caught by the surprise at the end and really liked it. Action scenes were very cool (the camera work at the house shootout was very cool and the bar fight was something). Definitely glad I picked up the blu-ray, a good addition to the library.
 
Watched this on bluray last night. Gary i had no idea it was you, i assumed you took on the alias of someone you admired, when i saw the 'GAry Whitta' i was like "NeoGaf loves this guy".

But its you! Well done mate, fun movie with a powerful ending. Being muslim myself it was nice to see the concept of faith compelling people to do good being explored. Especially in the post-apocalyptic setting. The line that stood out to me was when Eli spoke of people having more than they need pre-flash, stuff people kill for post-flash.

I was recommended this movie, word of mouth is strong.

PS: House getting lit up with Children of Man style (one-shot) shooting was amazing.
 
Just saw this movie with a group of friends. The concept of the movie really resonated with me since I'm religious. Had I known what the movie was about before going into it I would have seen it in the theaters. I thought it was just another post apocalyptic movie from the trailers. Easily the best movie I've seen this year. Everything from the visuals to the score was incredible. Well done Gary!
 
Saw this today finally. Really liked the colors and the Western tones. Pretty good movie, but I was clueless about a few things.

1.
Dude was blind? I'm just discovering this now since people are talking about it. He did not act like a blind person.

2.
Why was everything in ruins?
I know nothing about the story so I felt a little lost at first.
 
Lord love a duck I just saw this movie and it was beyond awful. Bad enough that I had to find this thread and post it in. Shame on anyone who says they like it just to spare someone's feelings.
 
Zilch said:
Lord love a duck I just saw this movie and it was beyond awful. Bad enough that I had to find this thread and post it in. Shame on anyone who says they like it just to spare someone's feelings.
Click to expand...

Shame on you for not giving any reasons why it was "beyond awful", you really added a lot to this thread.... :/
 
I saw this on the ground today and thought Gary would get a kick out of it:

2epreyw.jpg
 
Saw this movie on Saturday and like it more than I thought. The book hangups don't affect me at all which seems to be a peeve.

Best decapitations ever!:lol

I did not have a problem with Mila specifically, but I did think she was way too clean and pretty for the setting. It was too distracting. I had to talk myself into thinking she was
supposed to symbolize and angel or something
.

Watching a lot of the old
Zatoichi
allows me to accept Eli, but I also wondered if he had
super powers
& thus Milas character
had them too at the end
.
 
Hatredcopter said:
2.
Why was everything in ruins?
I know nothing about the story so I felt a little lost at first.
Click to expand...
Well, here's what I gathered from the movie:
I believe that Eli references the day a war broke out. Lots of people went blind from looking at the sky, it could've been nuclear related, or some other unknown event that caused our atmosphere to let in more UV light. There's no indication of what caused the war (that I know of, other than the burning of bibles, religious-related?), but it's effects can easily be seen on the midwestern landscape.
During the travel westward with Solara, you can see scorch marks and bomb craters in the earth. I'd imagine the land was pretty desolate before, so to have so much damage done to a sparsely populated area, it must have been a massive event.
There's some backstory in the animated comic that was on the blu-ray (dvd too?), but I don't think it got in to the particulars of what happened.
 
Just saw the movie today, had no idea it existed till I found my roomate's DVD copy by the TV. Popped it in, was pleasantly surprised it was a post-apocalyptic movie. So many things reminded me of Fallout, I was so fucking giddy. All in all, I liked the movie very much, especially the cinematography.

Credits rolled, noticed it was written by some guy called Gary Whitta, and then I remembered some guy used that alias on GAF, didn't think it'd be the same guy. Finally pieced it all together, and it's so awesome a fellow GAFfer had his script picked up and made into a movie with fucking Denzel and Oldman as the leads! Congratulations Gary, you must be very proud of your accomplishment!
 
Finally saw Book of Eli tonight. I much prefered The Road but maybe it's an unfair comparison; their only similarity is their setting.

I love Mila Kunis but I felt like she was an anchor on Denzel's dick the entire movie. Don't like her in this role and found the character not all that necessary in general.

Like Gary Oldman but it seemed like he was doing a Daniel Plainview impression. I was waiting for him to call Mila just a bastard in a basket.

Overall not a bad film...about what I expected really.
 
Yes why is Whitta banned? :(

This is one of my mom's favorite movies ever, she really liked it.

Also if your not the faithful type whatever but the whole point was to build to the end, hence it getting "churchy" so called. It's manufactured to build at the end and then throw out trump at just the right time... Maybe I am wrong but nah
 
Aselith said:
Somebody probably insulted Apple and he went apeshit.
Click to expand...
:lol Yeah, dude acts like Apple is a part of him or something.

but yeah, I saw this movie only recently and it was decent. I didn't think he necessarily needed to be
blind though. Just because somebody can read braille doesn't make them blind.
But if he was, he was. It didn't have much impact on the movie for me.
 
Addressing the poster above:
What do you mean he didn't have to be blind? Just like Bruce Willis didn't have to be dead. And Darth Vader didn't have to be Luke's father. Of course he didn't have to be. What the hell, man? It's part of the story that he was blind. Things never HAVE to happen as they happen.
 
Aselith said:
Addressing the poster above:
What do you mean he didn't have to be blind? Just like Bruce Willis didn't have to be dead. And Darth Vader didn't have to be Luke's father. Of course he didn't have to be. What the hell, man? It's part of the story that he was blind. Things never HAVE to happen as they happen.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean it in that way.
 
movie could have been better

twist saved it... i dunno perhaps it was some of the supporting cast, or maybe it reminded me of waterworld a little

didnt quite believe the post apocalyptic world so much and evil guy wasnt scary enough :(

sorry, did like it enough though
 
i just watched this movie. In fact, i'm watching it while i'm typing.


This is by FAAAAAAAAR one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life.

Albert & Allen Hughes should get ass raped many many times for this.

edit: lol at the twist. Jesus, i feel bad for Oldman... He's a hero.


the only (the ONLY) thing i like is the whistling of Morricone in the desert. Okay mayne Mila Kunis' eyes.
 
Always-honest said:
i just watched this movie. In fact, i'm watching it while i'm typing.


This is by FAAAAAAAAR one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life.

Albert & Allen Hughes should get ass raped many many times for this.

edit: I feel bad for Oldman... He's a hero.


the only (the ONLY) thing i like is the whistling of Morricone in the desert. Okay mayne Mila Kunis' eyes.
Click to expand...
Wow:lol
 
Always-honest said:
i just watched this movie. In fact, i'm watching it while i'm typing.


This is by FAAAAAAAAR one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life.

Albert & Allen Hughes should get ass raped many many times for this.

edit: lol at the twist. Jesus, i feel bad for Oldman... He's a hero.


the only (the ONLY) thing i like is the whistling of Morricone in the desert. Okay mayne Mila Kunis' eyes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought it was really bad too. I was hoping the movie would have a twist that would make the whole bible thing make sense but in the end the twist only made things worse. I mean, in the end it's basically a super hero movie with a religious base for the superpowers, which is just one more recipy for a bad movie.
 
Just watched it. Really liked that shootout scene in the house where the camera goes back and forth.

Didn't realize the twist until i read about it, facepalm.
 
I've only seen the movie once but I keep thinking about it from the religious aspect. Checking IMDB and many seem to hate it for it's religious overtones.

I still can't tell what was being said about the Bible iself except that I'm leaning toward it being neutral to negative. In other words, I don't think it's a pro-religion movie at all. In fact, the Bible apparently was the reason for the apocalypse & also about to be used by a guy to have absolute power. Eli himself may have committed unholy acts in order to fulfill his purpose especially in terms of his inaction in a harsh world. Finally, the purpose of the travel was to simply add it to a library for information purposes- understandable considering it's import throughout history and even for this world they live in.

The Bible is used to show how one thing has the ability to cause people to do extraordinary things, good or bad, when they realize it's perceived significance. One could argue that it was more important for Eli to help society more than it would be to carry a book around- especially with his skills.

He mentions how he lost his way from the Bible by not helping ones he passes by.
Kunis' character, at the first instance, decides to take what's she's learned about the Bible and Eli to affect change in the environment and particularly her hometown. However, she doesn't need the Bible itself and is unlikely to have memorized it.
 
Plumbob said:
So I had the "twist" spoiled for me, is this movie still worth seeing?
Click to expand...
I would still see it since the fight choreography is wonderful (best beheadings ever). I also liked the cinematography and mood. It's lighter in tone than I expected from a Hughes brothers film when it's set in a wasteland.

The world is interesting too plus you can pick up on the clues to the twist. I saw one part of the twist coming but not the other part.
 
Just watched this finally and was not aware of the twist. Looking back, I think in many cases he (Denzel) did act it very well and there were a lot of clues. I'm sure my boyfriend wanted to laugh his ass off (he'd already seen it) when I said,
"Where are his glasses!? He needs them or he'll go blind!"
:lol But he was good and did not react at all until after it was over.

This movie has a lot of things I generally dislike: religious themes and a big reveal at the end. But I really felt it was well done here--not preachy but a more realistic take on religion (not just anyone can "create" one, for example, and that faith can be a stick or a lantern, depending on how you use it), and the reveal made the film for me. I keep thinking too of little clues that give things away... man! I almost want to watch it again right now. I don't really get what people didn't like about it (those who didn't) and I haven't read the whole thread, just bits, but still. I quite enjoyed it and I'm usually a pretty harsh critic.

I didn't really get a superhero/superpower style vibe, either. Something I said at the beginning held true for me throughout. After the first fight, I leaned over and said, "See, this is why you don't fuck with the man who is alone in this world, because he is probably one bad dude." He was seasoned, used to using his body and mind in a way that gave him an edge in that world, and he wasn't fully immune to shit. There were some moments that were a little far-fetched, but I didn't think it was stretched so far that I couldn't accept a little suspension of disbelief. That is, nothing was so over the top or ridiculous, to my mind, that it killed the story itself. I was willing to step into the world and go with it, because it was well drawn enough to invite me in.

eta: and I fucking loved the old couple. Great actors in those roles didn't hurt, but they were a real highlight for me. Also, their names. :lol
 
Has Whitta gone into detail about how he broke into the industry and he got the script out there? As an aspiring writer it would be interesting to read, to say the least.
I secretly just want to be in The Walking Dead...
 
I should be doing hw said:
Has Whitta gone into detail about how he broke into the industry and he got the script out there? As an aspiring writer it would be interesting to read, to say the least.
I secretly just want to be in The Walking Dead...
Click to expand...


Remember when Homer wanted a doughnut really bad? Same thing with Gary.
 
I don't think it's a "twist" so much as a "reveal"...I just saw this movie recently, and it was really good, but I don't think I'm late enough to the party to merit a thread.

Still, I liked it. Definitely got a Fallout: the Movie vibe from it.
 
Don't know if I posted in this thread before. I liked the movie, quite a lot. Just didn't care for the very end. Thought it was unnecessary and not in keeping with the fiction of the world. But what do I know?

Awesome job, Gary.
 
jdogmoney said:
I don't think it's a "twist" so much as a "reveal"...I just saw this movie recently, and it was really good, but I don't think I'm late enough to the party to merit a thread.

Still, I liked it. Definitely got a Fallout: the Movie vibe from it.
Click to expand...

Effectively, the movie is exactly
Zatocihi, told from a slightly different perspective.
I don't know if that was an influence on Gaz or not. But it's precisely the same format. It's still one of my favorite action movies of the last two years. Solid, entertaining, good looking. Should have had a Daft Punk soundtrack!
 
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