Two weeks into the New Year and Britain was plunged into the worst arctic conditions for over three decades. Not only did we have to live with the New Year Blues and a lack of sunshine, we also had to contend with an unrelenting weather pattern that threatened to bolster an army of global warming deniers for a generation. Thanks Mother Nature, for everything.

But it could be worse, a lot worse, as two current films set after an apocalypse suggest. John Hillcoat’s film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer prize winning novel The Road traces the journey of a father & son to ‘the coast’, while the Hughes Brothers’ The Book of Eli takes its own route in following a loner ‘travelling west’ with nothing but a book, his wits, and superhero fighting skills. At no point do you feel their paths are likely to converge. 

In the case of The Road, imagine the recent arctic frost following an unexplained environmental catastrophe that’s resulted in the extinction of every animal and edible plant on the planet, and the only company you can hope for in the future are armed gangs of cannibal rednecks (American Chavs) on the scrounge for their next meal, which is probably YOU. This is the world The Road inhabits. Most reviews have been favourable, but the voices of dissent seem stuck in two very separate camps; those that moan and question its commercial viability because of its bleak subject matter, and those that state it’s not quite faithful enough to McCarthy’s book and needs to be even bleaker.

Having read the book before seeing the film I came to the conclusion that director John Hillcoat’s done a fine job. Yes, the book is even more gruesome, but the film pretty much gets the tone right. It’s safe to say it’s probably not a First Date movie unless you met at MANICDREPRESSIVE.com, but it might be the perfect Last Date film if you smile sympathetically through the credits to suggest the film’s subject matter might be mirroring your relationship.

Everything about The Road is pretty classy, and, beyond the maturity of its subject matter, what also sets it above the crappy CGI apocalypse-fests to which we’ve become accustomed is that a lot of the well chosen locations really look the way they’ve been photographed. The CGI (when used) is kept to a discreet minimum, making the catastrophe of the situation all the more real, believable and, ultimately, depressing. So far this review hasn’t really done much to encourage you to shell out your hard earned cash, but what makes this film so compelling is that it’s got a HEART. Initially it seems to have stopped beating with little signs of resuscitation, but, as the journey unfolds, its very clear that the two main protagonists – known only as ‘The Boy’ (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and ‘Papa’(Viggo Mortensen) - have a real and profound love for each other; one that will see them through the harshest and most horrific conditions.

In a world where creature comforts only exist in the dwindling memories of survivors, it’s not the absence of fossil fuels, firearms, or even food that threatens the continued existence of mankind. What really comes across as the most precious commodity, without which our species would truly be extinct, is humanity itself, and it’s beautifully illustrated in a touching but blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment between ‘The Boy’ and an ‘Old Man’ (a virtually unrecognisable Robert Duvall) whom the boy chooses to befriend.

I don’t cry much, but I could feel the moisture level in my eyes getting dangerously high. This film has a poignancy and resonance you just don’t get much in cinema nowadays.

Comparing The Road with The Book of Eli is unfair on just about every level. The latter doesn’t come from Pulitzer prize winning material and, ultimately, its message is not about humanity being the quintessential element required for the survival of the human race. This is an action film set after a nuclear apocalypse. Denzel Washington plays Eli, a charismatic, enigmatic stranger (aren’t they all?)

The opening sequence sets him up as a resourceful character gathering food with some nifty archery. We then discover he’s soulful with a great taste in music because, while he’s spit-roasting his recently deceased prey, he puts on his first generation iPod to listen to Al Green. Unfortunately what really impressed me most about this scene was that, fifty years in the future, he still had a first generation iPod that worked. Mine went six weeks after the warranty ran out. That’s without even getting into how he charged the damn thing. The Book of Eli is littered with little (and not so little) inconsistencies that The Road never encounters, and that’s before we even get to what the film’s suggesting might just save us all. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not “Love Sweet Love.”

The Hughes Brothers’ post-apocalyptic world isn’t too dissimilar to the ones we’ve seen before in the Mad Max Trilogy, The Postman, and 28 Days Later. In all of these some semblance of society still exists, albeit generally scaled down. Nobody looks skeletal (unlike Viggo Mortensen in The Road) and in some cases there’s even the possibility of a car chase, yet we never get the impression anybody’s farming or food’s too scarce. You always feel this is a post apocalyptic world where you might get your head kicked in – in a spectacular fashion - but you’re never really going to starve. The Book of Eli has okay action sequences and a decent supporting cast (including Gary Oldman) but it suffers from having very little to differentiate it from other end-of-the-world fare, apart from the presence of Denzel Washington as Eli.

What makes him vaguely different is that Eli is a Holy Warrior. He doesn’t drink and doesn’t accept sex from loose or fit women (unfortunately) but he does, when confronted with aggression, display a level of wrath that could best be described as ‘Biblical’. This is a man whose mercilessness in pursuing his objectives could teach Bin Laden, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair a thing or two about single-minded belief.

‘The Book’ in his possession is the last of its kind. The survivors of the nuclear aftermath decided that such ‘Books’ were responsible for the apocalypse and, as a result, set about burning all those that remained. If we assume that the book he’s carrying is The Bible, Eli’s habit of referring to it and praying before meals might suggest he’s a Christian. But his ideology and actions wouldn’t seem amiss among the highest ranks of Islamic or any other religious Fundamentalism. So, while you might welcome his fighting prowess, you probably wouldn’t have a great deal of fun spending quality time with him.

Eli also states that he’s been walking for over thirty years to deliver ‘The Book’ and, while we all know how vast the United States is, he’d have to have done it in a Zimmer Frame to have taken the time he takes to make the West Coast. There’s a moment at the end where something is revealed about Eli that’s meant to make his journey all the more impressive and miraculous, but all I could think was ‘oh dear, my level of disbelief perished after the iPod scene’. The message in The Book of Eli seems to be that getting The Bible back out amongst the great unwashed will prove humanity’s salvation, but, as the rest of the film revolves around violence and inhumanity, the future world it points to seems a lot more depressing than the glimmer of hope offered in The Road.