‘The Book of Eli’: Action keeps you engaged

If “The Road” was a post-apocalyptic scenario that couldn’t really live apart from its literary source, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, “The Book of Eli” has no such problems. For better or worse, this is a movie — an unbelievable one at times, but a movie.

Some awful holocaust, not detailed, happened to the world 30 years before the action begins. A lone wanderer named Eli, played by Denzel Washington, walks along a blasted highway in the lawless American Southwest.

His skills at defending himself from marauders are impressive. Almost supernatural: At times the film hints at the possibility that Eli possesses powers beyond the mere mortal.

Eli totes a leather-bound book with him. I guess this is a spoiler alert, although it’s not much of a secret, but the book is the King James version of the Bible —evidently most were destroyed in the apocalypse.

A power-hungry villain (Gary Oldman, doing his bad thing) wants to lay his hands on a Bible, because he says he can subjugate the masses with it.

Eli has holier plans, we assume. He takes on the care of a young woman (Mila Kunis), who has spent too much time in Oldman’s Thunderdome-like community.

Action ensues. Since little ammunition exists, Eli performs his slaughter with a large knife and a bow and arrow (an opening scene involving the arrow and some sort of feral forest cat is certainly an attention-grabber).

The stuff about the Bible is the gimmick that the movie needs to exist, but it’s serviceable. At least Gary Whitta’s screenplay sticks to the issue of survival more than any grandiose metaphysical goals. (When grandiose metaphysical goals rear their heads, the movie stumbles.)

“The Book of Eli” is directed by the Hughes Brothers, who got their start with “Menace II Society” but haven’t been heard from much since their subpar comic-book picture “From Hell.”

They’ve staged the movie in a sepia tone throughout, bleaching this future world of every color but brown, brown and more brown.

The action is staged well, particularly Eli’s initial takedown of a gang of traveling thugs under a freeway overpass. The Hughes Brothers actually allow you to see what’s happening, even if it’s in dramatic silhouette.

Washington’s performance is like the movie itself. He comes in, does his job in a grim fashion, and moves on like a professional. Because much of his face is hidden behind 1970s-sized sunglasses for large parts of the film, it’s saying something that his presence sticks.

This movie won’t leave much of a lasting impression, but somehow I appreciated the way it did its job without much fuss or wasted energy. In action movies, modesty and professionalism are virtues.

“The Book of Eli” two and a half stars