Allen Hughes
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The duo clearly did their homework while preparing for their comeback project; references to other cinematic apocalypses abound (biker gangs that could have ridden right out of Mad Max; a poster for the 1975 cult favorite A Boy and His Dog displayed in the background of one key scene) and the movie opens with a pre-title sequence that evokes the dark, desolate, ash-strewn world described in Cormac McCarthy's The Road more faithfully than the recent film version of that Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
The Bigger Picture: Considering that The Book of Eli combines the postapocalyptic milieu of a Mad Max flick with the brutal violence and gospel message of The Passion of the Christ, it's easy to imagine that it might become Mel Gibson 's favorite movie of the year.
If there is anything of even the least note about this film, it is that it's been quite a good long while since I can recall a post-apocalyptic film to invent so very little and to rip off the Mad Max movies quite so happily.
Yes folks we're in Mad Max, Terminator Salvation and even The Postman country as a grizzled, bible toting and quoting Denzel goes on his ‘lone wolf’ (or Littlest Hobo) mission to save humanity, one town at a time.
Eli, a former K-Mart store hand but clearly believing himself a Christian prophet, manages to escape the town alongside Solara but Carnegie and his stooges (led by Ray Stevenson) are hot on his tail across the desert wastes a la Mad Max.
The film’s marketing is deceptive because you’re given the impression this is first and foremost an action movie set in a dystopian future ala “Mad Max,” but instead, the movie gets bogged down in exposition about the significance of the central plot device.
The duo clearly did their homework while preparing for their comeback project; references to other cinematic apocalypses abound (biker gangs that could have ridden right out of Mad Max; a poster for the 1975 cult favorite A Boy and His Dog displayed in the background of one key scene) and the movie opens with a pre-title sequence that evokes the dark, desolate, ash-strewn world described in Cormac McCarthy's The Road more faithfully than the recent film version of that Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Wandering the scorched landscape familiar to countless other post-apocalyptic movies—The Road Warrior and A Boy And His Dog especially, though the film owes something to ’70s anti-Westerns, too—Denzel Washington plays a loner heading west with precious cargo.
Though it cribs wholeheartedly from previous end-of-the-world cinematic observations (think of the film as a cross between “The Road,” “The Postman,” and “A Boy and His Dog”), the Hughes Brothers craft a compellingly abrasive tone of moral manipulation to embellish the traditional maneuvers of violence, as Eli defends his secret tomb from would-be thieves and crusty scoundrels.
“Broken City” squanders a way-too-good cast in a meandering, not very compelling cop-and-political corruption story that plays like a half-hearted homage to Sidney Lumet’s ’70s crime thrillers like “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Prince of the City.”
Brian Tucker’s screenplay is within genuflecting distance of Serpico, Prince of the City and other gritty-good New York films directed by Sidney Lumet.
But even when they didn’t work, those movies — Serpico, Prince of the City, Power, Q & A, Night Falls on Manhattan — had an electric charge.
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
It pays homage to such early '90s hits as "Menace II Society," "Boyz N the Hood" and "Juice," but also strives to upend the stereotypes and tropes of those films.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
Early ’90s African-American coming-of-age dramas like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society turned inner city LA into a frightening jungle of predators and teenage victims, while a film like Friday conversely offered a ’90s LA coming-of-age story that managed to transform “the hood” into a ripe comedic landscape.
The Bigger Picture: Considering that The Book of Eli combines the postapocalyptic milieu of a Mad Max flick with the brutal violence and gospel message of The Passion of the Christ, it's easy to imagine that it might become Mel Gibson 's favorite movie of the year.
In the wake of The Passion Of The Christ, the expected deluge of big-budget Christian entertainments has never quite materialized, but the logline for the post-apocalyptic thriller The Book Of Eli—about a Biblical warrior who protects the last known copy of the Good Book—suggests a late start.
Naturally, Denzel devotees and action fans should line up early, but with some crafty targeted marketing Eli could also score big with the same Christian crowd that made The Passion Of The Christ into a worldwide phenomenon.
But when Eli hits a small frontier town run by a gangster called Carnegie (Gary Oldman, back in arch villain mode), the resemblance ends and the film evolves into an old-style good versus bad face-off straight out of a Sergio Leone movie (in fact, one of the characters repeatedly whistles Ennio Morricone’s theme to Once Upon A Time In America).
Along the way, Eli comes across a little town pretty reminiscent of those old Western towns in movies like "High Noon" or "Unforgiven."
Yes folks we're in Mad Max, Terminator Salvation and even The Postman country as a grizzled, bible toting and quoting Denzel goes on his ‘lone wolf’ (or Littlest Hobo) mission to save humanity, one town at a time.
Unlike other attempts at showcasing how rationality is restored in a society destroyed by chaos (say, The Postman), The Book of Eli never loses sight of its strategy.
Though it cribs wholeheartedly from previous end-of-the-world cinematic observations (think of the film as a cross between “The Road,” “The Postman,” and “A Boy and His Dog”), the Hughes Brothers craft a compellingly abrasive tone of moral manipulation to embellish the traditional maneuvers of violence, as Eli defends his secret tomb from would-be thieves and crusty scoundrels.
Nine Is No ‘8½’ I never saw the stage musical Nine, but despite some enjoyable musical numbers from the master, director Rob Marshall (Chicago), the screen version of Nine is not likely to extend the life of the not-quite-extinct musical genre.
The duo clearly did their homework while preparing for their comeback project; references to other cinematic apocalypses abound (biker gangs that could have ridden right out of Mad Max; a poster for the 1975 cult favorite A Boy and His Dog displayed in the background of one key scene) and the movie opens with a pre-title sequence that evokes the dark, desolate, ash-strewn world described in Cormac McCarthy's The Road more faithfully than the recent film version of that Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
The Book of Eli might also suffer over its uncanny resemblance to John Hillcoat’s current release The Road in that it follows a man heading westwards across America after an apocalyptic event has devastated the world.
Clearly the biggest hurdle facing the first movie from the Hughes Brothers since their Jack the Ripper thriller “From Hell,” is that it’s coming out so soon after John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”
Post-apocalyptic America has become a popular place for filmgoers to hang, whether we’re walking “The Road” with Viggo Mortensen or seeking “Salvation” in the latest “Terminator” installment.
Oldman brings demented charm to the role (echoes of Dennis Hopper in "Waterworld") as the madman who thrives in a mad, mad world.
Travolta had his "Battlefield Earth," Costner had his "Waterworld" and now Denzel Washington has his truly awful sci-fi epic, "The Book of Eli."
It's more brutal than "Road Warrior" and completely unlike "Waterworld," if you were concerned.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Directed by F. Gary Gray
influenced by Menace II Society (1993)
Themes
Although it earns its R rating in nearly every scene, the film’s vibe is closer to “The Social Network” than “Menace II Society,” choosing to romanticize the merits of the music and the relation between art and commerce, not the violence that was interconnected with the group’s rise and fall.
Let me say right now that the Hughes brothers are major filmmakers; their work evinces a visual dazzle and dark emotional resonance that owes more to the Martin Scorsese of Mean Streets than to the John Singleton of Boyz N the Hood.
From the opening titles, it’s clear that the Hughes Brothers have matured since their camera-trick heavy years with Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, putting forth a more meditative effort with Book of Eli, which deals with spirituality and cold-blooded survival in a bleak post-apocalyptic world of raw desperation.
The movie also moves along at a fairly decent clip, thanks to its directors, the brothers Albert and Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society," "Dead Presidents," "From Hell").
“Eli” is the work of confident filmmakers — brothers Allen and Albert Hughes (“Dead Presidents”) — and they are in control of every aspect of this great-looking, beautifully acted and emotionally engaging movie.
Book of Eli the ambitious thought-provoking new thriller from brothers Albert and Allen Hughes ( From Hell Dead Presidents ) is in many ways an anomaly in modern Hollywood.
The directors are brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, who made a splash in the early 1990s with gangsta fables “Menace II Society’’ and “Dead Presidents’’ and have struggled to find their footing since.
Granted, there are films which have spiritual, even religious contexts (The Matrix, Babylon A.D. ), yet none that contains the strong evangelical spirit upon which The Book of Eli proudly draws its influence.
That murky nothingness is then enhanced by hyper-realized action sequences that reach into a bag of cinematic tricks from The Matrix to Children Of Men.
The effect is rather spoilt by the way that the arrow, in flight, snaps into slow-motion for a bit, and a bit of dust gets pinged off the arrowhead in some moronically sexy and stylish way, and we all take a good long remember about why The Matrix was ultimately bad for the art of cinema.
Throughout The Book Of Eli, directors Albert and Allen Hughes opt to slow down the perpetually sagging storyline by resorting to pointless slow-mo and roving camerawork that looked cool in The Matrix but feels very tired now.
A humorous sidetrip to a farmhouse (with no less a reference to Motel Hell) becomes the kind of excitingly innovative shootout that Michael Bay thought he was doing in Bad Boys II and only succeeded in making the audience nauseous.
The sun is punishing, the weather’s cataclysmic, the wind so powerful it’s enough to send your hat flying off into the air, but other than that the post-apocalyptic wasteland featured in Finch is fairly tame compared to the afterworlds we’ve seen in such films as The Road , The Book of Eli , Mad Max 2,3, &4 , A Quiet Place , Planet of the Apes , and so forth.
Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)
Directed by Paris Barclay
influenced by Menace II Society (1993)
Plot
Like most of their earlier work on TV ("In Living Color") and later work for the screen ("Scary Movie," "White Chicks"), "Don't Be a Menace" is a spoof, and a fairly unsubtle one, of films like "Menace II Society," "South Central," "Juice," and "Boyz n in the Hood."
To understand most of its references, you should know, for example, John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood" and "Poetic Justice," the Hughes brothers' "Menace II Society," Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever" and at least one music video by Dr. Dre or Snoop Doggy Dogg.
The tone blends elements of sci-fi horror à la Alien: Covenant, the desolate modern western vibe of The Book of Eli, and the disciplined honor of samurai cinema like Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins or Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
From Hell (2001)
Directed by Albert Hughes
influenced The Book of Eli (2010), Broken City (2013), Menace II Society (1993)
The Hughes brothers, who also co-directed "From Hell," lovingly reference Trigun anime cartoons, video games such as "Fallout 3" and classic dystopian literature, most notably Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451."
Yet the force of this haunting allegory from Albert and Allen Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell) is its argument that spiritual sustenance may be more critical for survival than the comestible sort.
The movie also moves along at a fairly decent clip, thanks to its directors, the brothers Albert and Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society," "Dead Presidents," "From Hell").
It would almost have to be, with Allen and Albert Hughes (directing their first feature since 2001�s From Hell) behind the camera, aided by veteran cinematographer Don Burgess, who practically achieves a black-and-white film in color, and an oddball but evocative score by Atticus Ross.
Resurrection is The Book of Eli‘s game, from its tale of a post-apocalyptic society’s reformation, to its hero emerging from the ashes of a nuclear holocaust, to its filmmakers, Albert and Allen Hughes, striving to resuscitate their careers with this, their first fictional feature since 2001’s From Hell .
“Eli’’ is their first feature since 2001’s brooding Jack the Ripper mystery “From Hell,’’ and it references other movies and genres without ever quite settling into its own groove.