The Nevada Sagebrush

Mila Kunis and Denzel Washington star as two citizens fighting to redeem humanity after a near-apocalypse annihilates most of the United States in “The Book of Eli.” Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures.

The movie starts off 30 years after some religious war left in the United States presumably nuked and reduced to survival of the fittest. All of the Bibles were burned after the bomb hit except for one, and Eli doesn’t want to give it up. There isn’t much more back-story than that, as the movie only vaguely references the past. The set-up is sparse and leaves some unanswered questions, like why the opening scene is in a forest that is still raining ash 30 years after it was bombed.

All of that is fine, but it seems the main point is to put Eli in as many crazy fights as possible, which are awesome while they last.  The Hughes Brothers (“From Hell”) have an eye for stylish action, and the first time Washington whips out his machete to take on a gang of thieves is memorably cool.

Then there is Mila Kunis.

Kunis (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) plays Solara, a bartender and slave to an unnamed town’s evil ruler Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman (“The Dark Knight”). In predictable fashion, Solara insists on tagging along with the saint-like Eli, completely annoying the crap out of him in the process. She might not have all the cool moves as the samurai-esque Eli, but who needs guns and swords when you can look good in tight jeans?

It’s too bad the movie falls flat after its big shootout sequence two-thirds of the way through. It would have helped if the film had a more menacing villain than Carnegie, who literally spends half of the movie limping around with a cane. You know you have a lame bad guy when the scariest thing about him is that he loves to read.

Even with the shaky pseudo-religious antics of the plot, poorly-cast Kunis, and the less-than-capable villain, the movie kind of works. It is entertaining, and Washington commands attention in every scene he is in. I would have even been able to recommend the movie despite those shortcomings, but “Eli” had one last trick up its sleeve. The movie pulls a big twist toward the end that seems to come out of nowhere and takes away a lot of the credibility from the story.

If the idea of a saint with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other interests you, there’s just enough entertainment here to make this worth seeing, if only for a lack of better options.

Garrett Estrada can be reached at arts-entertainment@nevadasagebrush.com.

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