The Book of Eli
Encyclopedia
The Book of Eli is a 2010 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by the Hughes brothers
, written by Gary Whitta
, and starring Denzel Washington
, Gary Oldman
, Mila Kunis
, Ray Stevenson
and Jennifer Beals
.
The story revolves around Eli, a nomad in a post-apocalyptic world, who is told by a voice to deliver his copy of a mysterious book to a safe location on the West Coast of the United States. The history of the post-war world is explained along the way as is the importance of Eli's task. Filming began in February 2009 and took place in New Mexico
.
The film was released for theaters in January 2010. Alcon Entertainment
financed and co-produced the film with Silver Pictures
, while it was distributed by Warner Bros.
in the US, and international sales handled by Summit Entertainment
.
In the local town bar, Eli is confronted by a biker who takes exception to Eli shooing a cat away from his backpack. After an outburst of violence leaves the biker unconscious, Eli turns to leave but is quickly surrounded by the bar's other numerous denizens. As Eli dispatches the entire crew, Carnegie and his more capable cadre of henchmen arrive and train their guns on Eli, who surrenders. Upon polite conversation with Eli in his office, Carnegie realizes that he is a literate man like himself, and he asks him to stay, although it is made clear by Carnegie's second-in-command that the offer is non-negotiable.
After Carnegie's blind concubine Claudia (Beals) gives Eli some food and water, Carnegie asks Claudia's daughter Solara (Kunis) to seduce Eli. Eli turns her down, but she discovers he has a book in his possession. Eli refuses to tell her about the book but offers to share his food with her. Before they eat, though, he has her pray with him. The following day, Solara prays with her mother. Carnegie overhears them and realizes Solara's words were likely from the contents of the book he has been seeking, so he forces her to tell him Eli was reading a book; she says she does not know what kind but forms a cross with her two index fingers. Carnegie realizes Eli has a copy of the Bible
, the book he has been seeking. Eli sneaks out of his room and goes to the store across the street, where he had earlier asked the Engineer (Tom Waits
) to recharge a battery which he uses to power his portable music player.
Carnegie confronts Eli as he leaves the store, attempting to portray his interest in the book altruistically. Eli is unmoved, and rightly so: in a subsequent scene Carnegie speaks more frankly about the book, calling it a 'weapon'. As Eli begins to walk out of town up the main street, Carnegie asks his chief lackey to "shoot him, please." After seeing him miss twice, Carnegie tells the rest of the thugs join in, but they have no success bringing Eli down. Eli returns fire and shoots most of Carnegie's henchmen, also wounding Carnegie in the leg, probably unintentionally. After Eli leaves, Solara follows him and leads him to the source of the town's water supply, hoping she can accompany him on his travels. Eli traps her inside and continues on alone. Solara escapes and soon finds herself ambushed by two bandits who attempt to rape
her, but Eli appears and kills them with a pair of a meticulously placed bowshots.
As they continue on, Eli explains to Solara the nature of his journey. According to Eli, his book is the last remaining copy of the Bible, as all other copies were intentionally destroyed following the nuclear war. He says he was led to the book by a voice in his head, which then directed him to travel westward to a place where it would be safe. The voice assured him that he would be protected on his journey. Thus, for the last thirty years he has traveled west, guided by his faith.
Eventually, Eli and Solara arrive at a strange house. They stop to investigate and quickly fall through a trap door. The residents, Martha (Frances de la Tour
) and George (Michael Gambon
) – who are apparently cannibals – invite them in for tea; however, the travelers are soon found by Carnegie. Eli, Solara, Martha, and George hole up inside the house. A shootout ensues, leading to the deaths of many of Carnegie's men, as well as George and Martha. Eli and Solara are captured after an rocket-propelled grenade is fired into the house, followed by a barrage of bullets from a hand-cranked Gatling gun
. Carnegie threatens to kill Solara, which prompts Eli to hand over the Bible. Carnegie shoots him in the abdomen and leaves him for dead.
While in transit, Solara induces a devastating crash of the vehicle she is in, leaving both the driver dead and Carnegie's chief henchman, who had designs on 'having' Solara, fatally wounded. The remaining two vehicles in the convoy turn around and head towards Solara, but she rolls a grenade down the road, destroying the vehicle that Carnegie is not in. When Carnegie's driver tells them they are low on fuel, they return to town without attempting to capture Solara since Carnegie has already obtained the book he so fervently desired. Solara drives the vehicle west until she reaches the wounded but still walking Eli, and they keep heading west until reaching the Golden Gate Bridge
. They then row to Alcatraz, where they find a group of survivors. Eli tells the guards that he has a copy of the King James version of the Bible, and they are allowed in. Once inside, they are introduced to Lombardi (Malcolm McDowell
), the curator. Eli, who is revealed to be blind
, begins to dictate the Bible from memory.
Meanwhile, back in the town, Carnegie manages to open the locked Bible with the help of his Engineer, but he is horrified to discover that it is a Braille
copy. He is unable to persuade Claudia to read it for him. Carnegie's leg wound has become septic
, and he realizes he will die without making use of the Bible. Claudia laughs because Carnegie lost too many men chasing Eli and the book. Without enough manpower to keep order, the people of his town take control. Eli finishes dictating the Bible after being shaved and cleaned, and dies, presumably from his wounds, shortly thereafter. The printing press at Alcatraz begins printing the new King James Bible, after which Lombardi places a copy on the bookshelf between copies of the Tanakh
and Qur'an
. Solara is offered sanctuary in Alcatraz, but she instead chooses to head back home, equipped with Eli's weaponry.
and Warner Bros.
signed the Hughes brothers to direct The Book of Eli, based on a script by Gary Whitta. The film is the brothers' first since From Hell
in 2001. The script was subsequently rewritten by Anthony Peckham
, and in September 2008, Denzel Washington was cast in the lead role. The following October, Gary Oldman was cast to star alongside Washington. Principal photography
began in February 2009 and took place in New Mexico. Alcon Entertainment financed the film and co-produced with Silver Pictures.
The complex fight scenes were choreographed by Jeff Imada
and feature the Filipino martial art
of Kali. Denzel Washington trained for months with Dan Inosanto
and Jeff Imada for the role.
on January 15, 2010 in 3,111 theaters. It took in $11,672,970—$3,752 per theater, its opening day. By the end of its opening four-day holiday weekend it grossed $38,437,553—$12,355 per theater. It ranked number two, behind Avatar. On its second weekend, it placed third with Legion taking its number two place and grossed $15,732,493—$5,057 per theater. By its third weekend it dropped down to number five and made $8,908,286—$2,897 per theater. The film has come to gross $94,835,059 in the United States
and Canada
, and $62,256,659 in other markets, with an estimated worldwide total of $157,091,718.
reports that 49% of 187 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.5 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 47%, based on a sample of 32 reviews. The site's consensus is that "It's certainly uneven, and many viewers will find that its reach exceeds its grasp, but The Book of Eli finds the Hughes brothers injecting some fresh stylish fun into the kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland filmgoers have seen more than enough of lately." Metacritic
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 53 based on 33 reviews.
Todd McCarthy of Variety
predicted "this will not be one of ... Denzel Washington's bigger grossers." Chicago Sun-Times
critic Roger Ebert
gave the film 3 of 4 stars and said of the film: "You won't be sorry you went. It grips your attention, and then at the end throws in several WTF! moments, which are a bonus." Reviewing the film for The A.V. Club
, Scott Tobias graded the film a B, and wrote "At a time when theaters are experiencing a glut of doomsday scenarios, the Hughes' ashen, bombed-out future world looks a little too familiar, no matter how crisply they present it. But the showdown between Washington and a deliciously hammy Oldman complicates the film's overt religiosity...". Owen Gleiberman
of Entertainment Weekly
gave the film a D, calling it "a ponderous dystopia
n bummer that might be described as The Road Warrior without car chases, or The Road without humanity."
and Blu-ray Disc
on May 31, 2010 in the UK and on June 15, 2010 in the United States and Canada. The DVD took the top spot on all three national home video market charts in its first week. It premiered #1 on the Home Media Magazine's Rental Chart, the Nielsen Videoscan Blu-ray chart and the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert Sales Chart where it outdistanced its nearest competitor in sales by a 3 to 1 margin.
Hughes Brothers
Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes , known together professionally as the Hughes brothers, are American film directors, producers and screenwriters...
, written by Gary Whitta
Gary Whitta
Gary Whitta is an English screenwriter, author, game designer, and video games journalist. He is known as the former editor-in-chief of both the UK and US editions of PC Gamer magazine and contributor to gaming magazine, ACE....
, and starring Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
, Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...
, Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis
Milena "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Her work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on the TV series That '70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy...
, Ray Stevenson
Ray Stevenson (actor)
George Raymond "Ray" Stevenson is a Northern Irish-born English film and television actor. He is known for playing Titus Pullo in the BBC/HBO television series Rome , and in film as Dagonet in King Arthur and as Frank Castle/The Punisher in Punisher: War Zone and The Super Hero Squad Show...
and Jennifer Beals
Jennifer Beals
Jennifer Beals is an American actress and a former teen model. She is known for her roles as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former...
.
The story revolves around Eli, a nomad in a post-apocalyptic world, who is told by a voice to deliver his copy of a mysterious book to a safe location on the West Coast of the United States. The history of the post-war world is explained along the way as is the importance of Eli's task. Filming began in February 2009 and took place in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
.
The film was released for theaters in January 2010. Alcon Entertainment
Alcon Entertainment
Alcon Entertainment, LLC is an American film production company, founded in 1997 by film producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. Since its establishment, Alcon Entertainment has developed and financed films that are ultimately distributed by Warner Bros., following a ten-year motion picture...
financed and co-produced the film with Silver Pictures
Silver Pictures
Silver Pictures is a film production company founded by Hollywood producer Joel Silver during 1985. All movies after Ricochet have been distributed by Warner Bros and its subsidiary New Line Cinema.-Films:-Television series:*Moonlight...
, while it was distributed by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in the US, and international sales handled by Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment LLC is an independent film studio headquartered in Santa Monica, California with international offices in London.-History:...
.
Plot
Thirty years after a nuclear apocalypse, Eli (Washington) travels on foot towards the west coast of the United States. Searching for a source of water, and after successfully fending off an ambush, he arrives in a ramshackle town built and overseen by Carnegie (Oldman), who dreams of building an empire by using the power of a certain book. His henchmen scour the desolate landscape daily in search of it, but to no avail.In the local town bar, Eli is confronted by a biker who takes exception to Eli shooing a cat away from his backpack. After an outburst of violence leaves the biker unconscious, Eli turns to leave but is quickly surrounded by the bar's other numerous denizens. As Eli dispatches the entire crew, Carnegie and his more capable cadre of henchmen arrive and train their guns on Eli, who surrenders. Upon polite conversation with Eli in his office, Carnegie realizes that he is a literate man like himself, and he asks him to stay, although it is made clear by Carnegie's second-in-command that the offer is non-negotiable.
After Carnegie's blind concubine Claudia (Beals) gives Eli some food and water, Carnegie asks Claudia's daughter Solara (Kunis) to seduce Eli. Eli turns her down, but she discovers he has a book in his possession. Eli refuses to tell her about the book but offers to share his food with her. Before they eat, though, he has her pray with him. The following day, Solara prays with her mother. Carnegie overhears them and realizes Solara's words were likely from the contents of the book he has been seeking, so he forces her to tell him Eli was reading a book; she says she does not know what kind but forms a cross with her two index fingers. Carnegie realizes Eli has a copy of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, the book he has been seeking. Eli sneaks out of his room and goes to the store across the street, where he had earlier asked the Engineer (Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
) to recharge a battery which he uses to power his portable music player.
Carnegie confronts Eli as he leaves the store, attempting to portray his interest in the book altruistically. Eli is unmoved, and rightly so: in a subsequent scene Carnegie speaks more frankly about the book, calling it a 'weapon'. As Eli begins to walk out of town up the main street, Carnegie asks his chief lackey to "shoot him, please." After seeing him miss twice, Carnegie tells the rest of the thugs join in, but they have no success bringing Eli down. Eli returns fire and shoots most of Carnegie's henchmen, also wounding Carnegie in the leg, probably unintentionally. After Eli leaves, Solara follows him and leads him to the source of the town's water supply, hoping she can accompany him on his travels. Eli traps her inside and continues on alone. Solara escapes and soon finds herself ambushed by two bandits who attempt to rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
her, but Eli appears and kills them with a pair of a meticulously placed bowshots.
As they continue on, Eli explains to Solara the nature of his journey. According to Eli, his book is the last remaining copy of the Bible, as all other copies were intentionally destroyed following the nuclear war. He says he was led to the book by a voice in his head, which then directed him to travel westward to a place where it would be safe. The voice assured him that he would be protected on his journey. Thus, for the last thirty years he has traveled west, guided by his faith.
Eventually, Eli and Solara arrive at a strange house. They stop to investigate and quickly fall through a trap door. The residents, Martha (Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour is an English actress perhaps best known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom Rising Damp, and as Madame Olympe Maxime in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.-Early life and family:De la...
) and George (Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
) – who are apparently cannibals – invite them in for tea; however, the travelers are soon found by Carnegie. Eli, Solara, Martha, and George hole up inside the house. A shootout ensues, leading to the deaths of many of Carnegie's men, as well as George and Martha. Eli and Solara are captured after an rocket-propelled grenade is fired into the house, followed by a barrage of bullets from a hand-cranked Gatling gun
Gatling gun
The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...
. Carnegie threatens to kill Solara, which prompts Eli to hand over the Bible. Carnegie shoots him in the abdomen and leaves him for dead.
While in transit, Solara induces a devastating crash of the vehicle she is in, leaving both the driver dead and Carnegie's chief henchman, who had designs on 'having' Solara, fatally wounded. The remaining two vehicles in the convoy turn around and head towards Solara, but she rolls a grenade down the road, destroying the vehicle that Carnegie is not in. When Carnegie's driver tells them they are low on fuel, they return to town without attempting to capture Solara since Carnegie has already obtained the book he so fervently desired. Solara drives the vehicle west until she reaches the wounded but still walking Eli, and they keep heading west until reaching the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
. They then row to Alcatraz, where they find a group of survivors. Eli tells the guards that he has a copy of the King James version of the Bible, and they are allowed in. Once inside, they are introduced to Lombardi (Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
), the curator. Eli, who is revealed to be blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, begins to dictate the Bible from memory.
Meanwhile, back in the town, Carnegie manages to open the locked Bible with the help of his Engineer, but he is horrified to discover that it is a Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
copy. He is unable to persuade Claudia to read it for him. Carnegie's leg wound has become septic
Sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially deadly medical condition that is characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response by the immune system to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues...
, and he realizes he will die without making use of the Bible. Claudia laughs because Carnegie lost too many men chasing Eli and the book. Without enough manpower to keep order, the people of his town take control. Eli finishes dictating the Bible after being shaved and cleaned, and dies, presumably from his wounds, shortly thereafter. The printing press at Alcatraz begins printing the new King James Bible, after which Lombardi places a copy on the bookshelf between copies of the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
and Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. Solara is offered sanctuary in Alcatraz, but she instead chooses to head back home, equipped with Eli's weaponry.
Production
In May 2007, Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
signed the Hughes brothers to direct The Book of Eli, based on a script by Gary Whitta. The film is the brothers' first since From Hell
From Hell (film)
From Hell is a 2001 American crime drama horror mystery film directed by the Hughes brothers. It is an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell about the Jack the Ripper murders.-Plot:...
in 2001. The script was subsequently rewritten by Anthony Peckham
Anthony Peckham
Anthony Peckham is an South African born American screenwriter and producer.-Career:Peckham's first screenplay to reach production was 1990's The Assassin...
, and in September 2008, Denzel Washington was cast in the lead role. The following October, Gary Oldman was cast to star alongside Washington. Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began in February 2009 and took place in New Mexico. Alcon Entertainment financed the film and co-produced with Silver Pictures.
The complex fight scenes were choreographed by Jeff Imada
Jeff Imada
Jeff Imada is an American marital artist, stuntman, actor and director. He has performed stunts in over 100 films and television programs and authored one of the first books published in the US about the balisong knife.-Life and career:...
and feature the Filipino martial art
Filipino martial arts
Filipino Martial Arts refers to ancient and newer fighting methods devised in the Philippines, the most popular of which are known as Arnis/Eskrima/Kali. The intrinsic need for self-preservation was the genesis of these systems. Throughout the ages, invaders and evolving local conflict imposed new...
of Kali. Denzel Washington trained for months with Dan Inosanto
Dan Inosanto
Daniel Arca Inosanto is a Filipino-American martial arts instructor from California who is best known as a student of the late Bruce Lee and authority on Jeet Kune Do Concepts.-Martial arts:...
and Jeff Imada for the role.
Box office
The film was released in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on January 15, 2010 in 3,111 theaters. It took in $11,672,970—$3,752 per theater, its opening day. By the end of its opening four-day holiday weekend it grossed $38,437,553—$12,355 per theater. It ranked number two, behind Avatar. On its second weekend, it placed third with Legion taking its number two place and grossed $15,732,493—$5,057 per theater. By its third weekend it dropped down to number five and made $8,908,286—$2,897 per theater. The film has come to gross $94,835,059 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and $62,256,659 in other markets, with an estimated worldwide total of $157,091,718.
Critical reviews
The film has received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 49% of 187 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.5 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 47%, based on a sample of 32 reviews. The site's consensus is that "It's certainly uneven, and many viewers will find that its reach exceeds its grasp, but The Book of Eli finds the Hughes brothers injecting some fresh stylish fun into the kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland filmgoers have seen more than enough of lately." Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 53 based on 33 reviews.
Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
predicted "this will not be one of ... Denzel Washington's bigger grossers." Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film 3 of 4 stars and said of the film: "You won't be sorry you went. It grips your attention, and then at the end throws in several WTF! moments, which are a bonus." Reviewing the film for The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
, Scott Tobias graded the film a B, and wrote "At a time when theaters are experiencing a glut of doomsday scenarios, the Hughes' ashen, bombed-out future world looks a little too familiar, no matter how crisply they present it. But the showdown between Washington and a deliciously hammy Oldman complicates the film's overt religiosity...". Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film a D, calling it "a ponderous dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n bummer that might be described as The Road Warrior without car chases, or The Road without humanity."
Home media
The film was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on May 31, 2010 in the UK and on June 15, 2010 in the United States and Canada. The DVD took the top spot on all three national home video market charts in its first week. It premiered #1 on the Home Media Magazine's Rental Chart, the Nielsen Videoscan Blu-ray chart and the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert Sales Chart where it outdistanced its nearest competitor in sales by a 3 to 1 margin.