Henry Saw: The Book of Eli and Legion

Two biblical action movies that are both riddled with flaws but also manage to entertain



The Book of Eli is the first film from the Hughes Brothers since 2001's From Hell. From Hell (an adaptation of Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper Graphic Novel) is a guilty pleasure of mine but it's not the work of great artists. Neither is The Book of Eli, though like From Hell there are some standout sequences, and the Hughes Brothers have returned to make a film that was a bit better than I expected.

The Book of Eli stars Denzel Washington as a man wandering across a ravaged world and desperate to protect a book he wants to take to the west. He enters a town run by Gary Oldman, who wants to get his hands on a copy of the bible so he can control the villagers, and the inevitable conflict soon arises.



The Book of Eli feels like it comes from a lot of different genres: Western, samurai, comic book, apocalyptic future...but the film does hold together as a genre piece. The action is strong throughout, there's a lot of long takes in the fighting and shooting scenes that is refreshing in this day and age. Washington and Oldman have a lot of fun with their stock characters and the whole film just has a good feel for what it is.

Unfortunately there are too few surprises (and the major one at the end is ridiculous), Mila Kunis is woefully miscast as a local street girl, there are too many dead spots, and the film's whole message is pretty dubious to me. I won't go into it too much but in my mind the film makes its point very clear and it just made me uncomfortable and didn't find the film found a solid middle ground given their touchy subject matter.



The Book of Eli is a perfectly decent action film, when it's an action movie, but there are too many lulls in the film and I have too many questions about the movie's approach to its subject to give it a fully positive review.

Best Scene: The scene pictured above that features a cameo from Michael Gambon



Legion is a much worse movie than The Book of Eli. Much worse. The direction is worse, the acting is much worse, and even the plotting is worse. Strangely, I might have had more fun at Legion. Legion tells the story of a fallen angel (Paul Bettany) who finds himself protecting a disparate group in a diner after God has declared war on the human race. The movie also features Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, and Lucas Black (the little kid from Sling Blade).

The plot of this movie is one that I am prone to liking. While religion is not really my thing, I do enjoy the mythology of Lucifer, the Arch-Angels, the Rapture etc. So the idea of the angels going to war over mankind is appealing to me. Unfortunately, Legion is a relatively small film, and so focused on just Bettany and the group in the bar, that this never becomes the movie I wanted.

If you've seen Fom Dusk Til Dawn, Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, or even Assault on Precinct 13, than you have a sense of how the film is structured. A group of strangers is forced to stay in an enclosed space and fight off faceless villains. Because we know how the movie will go, it's easy to sit back, relax, and enjoy the stereotypes and cliche lines. The one clever scene - the evil old woman - was "ruined" in the trailer (although I probably would not have seen the film if not for that moment in the advertisements).

The cast is hardly worth mentioning...I always like Paul Bettany but he's not entirely convincing as an ass-kicker...and I must admit I laughed out loud at the movie more than once. This is a pretty lazy movie...their use of religious myth is surface level at best, it rips off dozens of other films, and some of the action scenes feel like they were put together in 10 minutes. Still, I enjoyed my time in the theater, and the movie never tries to be more than 88 minutes of trashy fun. While I would love to see a movie more faithful to the iconography and legend of the warrior aspects of angels...I can't get too mad at a film for knowing what it wants to do and sticking with it.



The end of Legion is silly, and kind of makes the whole film feel unnecessary, but I liked how it's, almost literally, a deus ex machina finale (credit to Ben for putting that together). Don't go out and see Legion...really it's not any good...but just know that it's not the worst thing out there. If you see it in the right mood, or with the right person, you can have fun with it.

Best Scene: The old woman...


The Book of Eli Grade: B-

Legion Grade: C-

But I think I liked Legion more.