I recently watch two newly released post-apocalyptic movies. These were "The Road" with Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from Lord of the Rings) and "The Book of Eli" with Denzel Washington. Both movies were unbearable, but for completely different reasons.

In The Road, Viggo Mortensen plays a father with a small son trying to survive in a dying world. Through flashbacks, you discovered that the boy was born right after something really bad happened to the world leaving it in perpetual grey winter. The boy is about twelve so that gives the time-frame. And the something bad was nuclear war, solar flare, eco-collapse or something else. You never really know. This movie is very realistic. There are no heroes or great acts of bravery. This movie is about terribly desperate and starving people trying to stay alive. Early in the movie you learn that cannibalism is the great fear. And there is lots and lots of this in the movie. There's so much paranoia, depression and desperation, that you cannot really tell the good guys from the bad guys. There are no explosions or gunfights. The father keeps a gun with two remaining bullets to kill his son and himself if cornered by other desperate people. The realism and horror of this movie were too much for me to take. I have had several nightmares since watching it. ONLY watch this movie if you have a very strong constitution and do not have children of your own. A 40-something year-old man with kids like me was shaken to the core.

The next post-apocalyptic movie was the Book of Eli. Here, Denzel Washington plays a sword slashing hero on a mission from God. He basically lives in the same world shown in the “Road Warrior” movies from the 1980’s. It’s a desert landscape with cartoon-like bad guys driving hopped up salvaged trucks. It has lots of explosions and gunfights with bad guys that can’t shoot straight. The very obvious very light theological aspect of this movie is just window dressing for the comic book style action sequences. And overall, it’s not even a very good action movie with all its long non-action scenes that don’t really even move the story ahead. It is bad acting, bad directing and a weak story. I hope Denzel got a nice big check. At least that way, somebody will have gotten something good from this movie. ONLY watch this if you have nothing better to do and you like good actors in stupid movies.

Both movies are available for free pirate viewing online. I give The Road four out of five pirate eye-patches for being all around great even if the story has too much pain to endure. The Book of Eli gets two eye-patches. I would have given it one, but Denzel Washington has a few good scenes that at least remind you this is supposed to be a major motion picture and not a made-for-TV special on the SiFi channel.

Thanks for the information Handy for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would want to put this kind of horror through their head.

I had my fill as a young teenager watching "Woman on Pier 13" I accidently went in to see the same movie later, (I had not paid attention to the name the first time) but I had to put my fingers in my ears shut my eyes when it got to the drowning scene. I never watched any such movies afterward.

Always remember; within any 40 year old man there is still a small fragment of a young boy that must be dealt with.
Grannye