"The Book of Eli": How far would you go to protect the good book?

The Book of Eli is a joyride of a film: from its beautiful imagery, perfect casting and seamless storytelling.

Written by Gary Whitta and directed by Albert and Allen Hughes (New York, I Love You) this film follows Eli (Denzel Washington) as he walks across a barren post-apocalyptic America carrying the last copy of a King James Bible.

Humanity is barely surviving and they survive only by doing horrible things to one another – like mugging and cannibalism. Armed with a few guns and a machete, Eli kills those who attempt to steal the good book from him or those who simply stand in his way of getting to his unknown destination.

Walking only by faith, his journey leads him into a small town where he meets Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the feared town leader who coincidentally is looking for the last bible. When Eli refuses to hand the book over, Carnegie begins a campaign to take the book from him by force.

One of the great things about this film is that it never becomes too preachy. Eli will occasionally recite lines from the bible briefly in moments right before he is about to kill someone or when he's trying to make a point.

The film really does a great job of staying away from having any religious opinions. Eli never, at any point of the film acts like a Christian, teaches anyone how to be a Christian or tries to be the embodiment of Christ.

He actually believes himself to be this extreme sinner because of the things he's had to do to complete his quest – and boy does he do some violent things. It is really easy to substitute the bible with anything because he's just a man who believes in this religious artifact he's carrying.

There are several action sequences in the film, but they never slow down the movie at all. There's always an intense build up to them that the action comes naturally. What's also great are that these scenes are not overdone and attempt to be as realistic as possible.

Where in most action movies, audiences are given intense action sequences from beginning to end, but the action here seems to get more intense as the film progresses. There are also a few moments that feature great hand-to-hand combat, which is filmed using one continuous shot.

The Book of Eli has a wonderful cast. The Hughes brothers spared no expense and casted every role with a great actor or actress. Solara (Mila Kunis) who plays the daughter of Claudia (Jennifer Beals) is a great supporting actor who follows Eli on his journey.

What's great about Beals is that she easily passes as Kunis' mother. There is not a single speaking role that goes to waste. It is because of this great cast that these characters work well with each other and never feel out of place.

The film is also visually stunning. The Hughes brothers have created this bleak, almost black and white post-apocalyptic world. Nothing looks like it’s computer generated and you continuously wonder how some of these places were created. It’s easy to see that the directors completely stand behind their vision by giving you an opening sequence of Washington just walking around, with no dialogue whatsoever.

There are a ton of great shots such as a fight scene Eli has in a bar, or when he slips back into the shadows of an overpass to fight some highjackers.

When you come right down to it, The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic western. The film is not about the religion, it's simply about a guy trying to take the bible and get it into the right hands.

If anyone watching this film wants to suddenly take up Christianity, it won't be because this film has taught them anything about the religion. More than likely it's probably because they want a cool African machete to carry around.

What this film brings to the table is some great writing – who knew video game writers were actually writers - a great cast, wonderful imagery and some twists that you never see coming.

This further proves that Washington has trouble finding his way into a bad movie. This film gets five African machetes out of five.