Back in 2001, comic writer Garth Ennis wrote an interesting mini-series called Just a Pilgrim. In it, the earth is a wasteland after an event called The Burn, where the sun expanded and literally scorched the earth. An unspecified time later came The Pilgrim, a mysterious man walking across the great plains of the Atlantic ocean, driven by his faith, and pursuing a personal holy mission. Along the way, he comes across a wagon train besieged by pirates, and joins on as their protector.  The story was one-part comedy, two-parts western and post-apocalyptic adventure, and finally-a disturbing look at the power of faith.

I couldn’t help but be reminded by this as I sat down in the theater to watch The Book of Eli, the latest film from the Hughes Brothers and starring Denzel Washington as the titular Eli, a man of immense faith walking across the post-apocalyptic American wasteland 30 years after a world-war followed by a massive solar event killed off most of humanity, leaving the survivors scrambling for leftover scraps. In the 30 years since the solar event, civilization has regressed into a perfect post-apocalyptic version of Hollywood western society, with the horses replaced by motorcycles, and the good sippin’ whiskey replaced by pure water.

In this world filled with bandits, cannibals, and general hopelessness, Eli walks-following in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and Alan Ladd’s Shane. Filling out the western conventions are Gary Oldman as the “Robber Baron”, returning to the deliciously tasty side of Evil after playing heroic sidekicks the last few years, Jennifer Beals as the “Kept Madam”, and Mila Kunis as the “Wide-eyed Innocent”. It’s to Kunis’ credit that she hold her own in the face of Washington and Oldman-it’s almost enough to forget that she’s Jackie from That 70’s Show.

In classic form, Eli only wants to travel in peace and live by The Word, but keeps getting harassed, leaving him no choice but to rather reluctantly kick the living sin out of everybody in the room. By reluctantly, I mean of course with “great speed and flourish”, with limbs flying akimbo after meeting with his machete. Eventually people stop trying to stab Eli, and go the way of the Gun-where he proves to be the kind of marksman that can make guns have 2 times their effective range and stopping power. Eastwood would be proud.

Between these wicked fun bits of violence, there’s well-acted scenes where people discuss some incredibly silly things with utmost gravitas and emotion. The movie has the story it wants to tell, and by God it’s going to tell it. If you haven’t seen the trailers. Eli’s got a book to deliver, Oldman wants the book for himself, wackiness ensues until the big twist at the end, and the credits roll. High concept nonsense, but done with such panache you won’t mind at all. The movie is beautifully shot, great score, and as stated already-solid performances, even if Oldman’s Carnegie is not nearly as menacing or fun as Norman “Stan” Stansfield, or The Count

This is not a Cavalcade movie. It’s too well executed and takes itself far too seriously for a proper bit o’ the mockery. It’s definitely worth a look however, and I’d fully recommend a double feature with Eastwood’s seminal Pale Rider.

How is it possible to make a movie this bad?

It has a who’s who of B-Movie actors, from Malcolm McDowell , to Downtown Julie Brown and the the kid who played Rufio in Hook (Dante Basco).

This film is disappointing in nearly every way a movie can be. First of all, it’s so slowly paced that, even at just 90 minutes, it’s too long.  Secondly, the casting is just terrible. Costas Mandylor-who was at his best in Picket Fences -is the main villain, Lord Shin. He mugs and grimaces at the camera and delivers his line in a way that a nine year old might find scary. Also it doesn’t help he’s wearing a ridiculous wig that he can’t stop playing with.

But probably the most grievous of all the miscues in this movie, is the casting of a kick boxer as the man who supposed to be the Fist of the Northstar. Gary Daniels plays Kenshirô, the titular Fist-and he’s aggressively unappealing in the role. He wanders his way through a Dystopian Landscape ^TM that is caused by an unknown event at an unspecified time, as Malcolm McDowell vaguely puts it an opening monologue that says “bad things happened” as we scroll past a demolished city.

Not that we need motivation for violence in a movie, but if you’re going to have a flashback explaining everything, you might want to give it to us while we still care. You see, apparently Shin betrayed Kenshirô and poked a punch of holes in chest, one by one, with his index finger-as the lady they’d been feuding over looked on. We get to see this in a flashback that looks like it was filmed on the set of a high school production of MacBeth, and it takes far too long to get to it.

Before that, Lord Shin’s Goon Squad-consisting of Chris Penn and Clint Howard -hassle and capture a bunch of rebels, the aforementioned Downtown Julie Brown, and Melvin Van Peebles. Yes, that Melvin Van Peebles. The movie is cut up between the goon squad doing bad things, and then Lord Shin saying how it’s all part of his master plan, wash, rinse repeat.

After a bunch of vaguely related scenes and some very boring fight sequences with gratuitous slow-mo, we at last get to the final battle between Shin and Ken. Personally, I rooted for Ken, because Lord Shin dresses like he was at a fashion show for Super villains (“This fall, all the most stylish dystopian dictators will be going with the lace-up leather tank top.”)

Can you Cavalcade this movie? Sure, but we don’t recommend it. It’s too dull. But if you just really had to, this movie could go well with Street Fighter: The Movie, just in terms of sheer badness.