The Book of Eli/Max Payne

Before I get into my big problem with The Book of Eli let me say why I liked it (and overall I did). The film has a nice visual aesthetic, and the plot exhibited more intelligence than you would expect in a post-apocalyptic western (though as has been pointed out in other outlets post-apocalyptic is a misnomer, you should really just call it apocalyptic). Denzel Washington convincingly plays a 'man with no name' (actually his name Eli, but the character description fits) who is carrying the last copy of the bible across a decimated America. Gary Oldman is a man trying to establish a new society and he believes that if he has the Bible he can use it's words to reach his goal (and if you get past the fact that he's a psychopath, the motivation actually makes sense). The film also has some well shot action scenes (which means the camera doesn't cut away every three seconds) and even though the end gets a bit silly its fairly entertaining and worth checking out.

That said, as alluded to earlier, it does have one serious flaw. Mila Kunis plays a girl who ends up joining Denzel on his quest and her character is shown as being a serious badass. While she is alot of things, one thing Mila kunis is not is an intimidating presence. I have no problem with strong female characters but I require that they at least appear to be physically capable of beating up a second grader. Really its not just that she's terribly miscast, the entire character is unnecessary, and her presence feels like a studio note that got shoehorned in to give the audience someone more' sympathetic' to identify with. She doesn't kill the film, but the character is incredibly distracting.

Now onto May Payne. This is what you watch when you're at a conference, and too tired to focus on anything else because Southwest canceled all flights into SAN DIEGO because of weather and as a result you're bumped nine hours and running on four hours of sleep. I actually feel a little bad about the criticism I'm about to level on the film because I've met it's director John Moore and he's a super cool guy. Whatever, nobody reads this anyway.

So this film is kind of a mess and, like the book of Eli, makes the mistake of casting Mila Kunis as a heavy (it doesn't work here either). Every time you see her trying to be intimidating you just want to pat her on the head and give her a bunny which I'm guessing is not the effect they were going for. She's not even the biggest problem though. The film starts out as a fairly standard 'bitter cop trying to find his wife's killer but plays by his own rules and in the process alientates the force procedural' (or as I like to call it a - BCTFHWKBPBHORAINTPATFP), and while this is fairly uninteresting at least it was inoffensive. The last half an hour is where it abandons any logic that had been established up to that point (which admittedly wasn't much) and gets so stupid and nonsensical that I though for sure I had blacked out and missed some large chunk of it (I hadn't). I don't want to get too in to the details but here's a brief rundown:

-May fights some super soldier
-Just before said super soldier chops him to death with a Machete, Max's friend B.B (played by Beau bridges who probably just got the job because the character could use his monogrammed handkerchiefs) shoots the soldier and saves Max's life.
-As Max is asking B.B. what happened he's coldcocked and we learn that B.B. actually Killed Max's wife and now is going to kill Max (keep in mind he could have just let Max get macheted to death a minute earlier). BB's associate asks why they don't just shoot MAx and be done with it (reasonably so) but BB wants to monolougue and proceeds to give one of the most rambling incoherant speeches I've ever heard not given by Sarah Palin (rimshot). This allows Max to escape by jumping into a frozen river where he spends about fifteen minutes drowning, but decides not to when a vision of his dead wife tells him 'Not Yet'
-Max follows BB to his evil headquarters, where he's shot point blank with a shotgun. He's about to die but Mila tells him 'Not yet' so he's sufficiently motivated to get killing again.
-BB fills max with about fifty rounds from an automatic rifle, Max still kills him but starts to finally die when his dead wife again tells him 'Not Yet' so he decides to live. Fin.

You get this idea. I haven't even mentioned the angels/valkyries that are always flying around for no apparent reason (don't ask). So yeah, I don't recommend Max Payne (though I did learn that if an attractive woman whispers 'Not Yet' to you when you're about to die you'll actually live).