The Book of Eli

So, I watched The Book of Eli the other night. I had been interested when it was in theaters but given family life and all, I wasn't going to push going to see it. That said, the more I read about it, the more I wanted to see it. And finally, I have.
The basic plot is simple enough, thirty years after a nuclear war (it's never said explicitly but...duh), Eli (Denzel Washington) is heading west, carrying a book, a book that Carnegie (Gary Oldman) has been looking for for quite a while. Naturally enough, they run into each other. Since the movie has been out a while now and it doesn't waste much time revealing it, the book is in fact the Bible, perhaps the last one.
This of course is where it gets interesting. It is the last Bible because people quite consciously sought them out after the war and destroyed them, apparently blaming Christianity for the war. There isn't any detail given beyond that as to how or why the war started. In any case, it is thirty years later and most of the population can't read, making them ripe for manipulation by the evil Carnegie. See, Carnegie is old enough to remember the power the Bible has to inspire and motivate people for good or ill. Carnegie figures that if he can get a hold of one, he can spoon feed the populace whatever he wants from it and so bend them to his will more completely than he will ever be able to accomplish through force alone. Eli is also aware of this power and thus seeks to protect on his journey from people like Carnegie. Thus bullets fly and people fall, a lot.
One of the best things about the movie is that Eli is not perfect. More importantly, his imperfection is not celebrated and in fact he realizes his faults by the end of the movie. Essentially, he is so focused on his specific task of bringing the Bible cross-country (and reading it every night) that he has forgotten to apply what he reads, which he sums up towards the end of the movie as "do unto others." This is particularly relevant as at the beginning he ignores a woman being gang-raped and later on lies to a girl (Solara played by Mila Kunis) to prevent her from following him. It is, in fact his interaction with Solara that leads him to re-evaluate his actions and they way he had been living his life. I think that moral of this part of the story is that even divinely appointed soldiers on a mission from God (literally in this case) are not necessarily perfect and require redemption just like the rest of us.
Eli does actually share his faith during the movie, inviting Solara to a before meal prayer which completely baffles her, especially since she was sent in to seduce him. The fact that he doesn't take advantage of her and also shares his food visibly confused her. Eli certainly is not your typical post-apocalypitc survivor.
My only real complaint with the movie concerns the end. Eli loses the Bible along the way but does eventually reach his destination, a survivor colongy on Alcatraz which is dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of man and eventually diseminating it through world again. Sort of like the monastaries during the "Dark Ages." The loss is only partial though as after thirty years of reading the Bible every day, he has it memorized and it is quickly transcribed and becomes the first book off their newly operational printing press (a nice homage to Guttenberg, I thought). From there, it is placed on a shelf. Between the Talmud and the Koran. In effect, after Eli receives his task in a kind of vision, is clearly given a supernatural ability to fight and is in fact protected from death until his task is complete, the Bible is treated just like any piece of literature. Sure it is an important piece of our cultural heritage but the entire movie treats it as much more than that, as something that contains answers to our hearts' deepest longings that reveals the hidden purpose of our lives. More to the point, given the aforementioned vision, fighting, etc. it seems to treat the Bible and Christianity as the truth. And then, it's just put on the shelf? A much better ending would have been to have a minister of some sort giving a speech about how long they have waited for this day and then begin reading, probably the parable of the Good Samaratin.
Still, all in all a good movie, with good acting, good action and an overall positive portrayal of faith without being afraid to look at the way people abuse it or to acknowledge the faults of the faithful.