After a movie apocalypse, good men and -- women -- are hard to find.

Most of the survivors turn into thieves, rapists, murderers bullies and cannibals. That's a good thing for "The Book of Eli" because it gives Denzel Washington a chance to stack up a staggering body count and save the movie from a minimalist but pretentious script by Gary Whitta.

Washington plays the title character, a kind of mysterious but lethal loner along the lines of the early Clint Eastwood. Eli is walking westward, carving up bad guys with his machete during his journey. A voice told him to take a precious book to the enclave of some decent folk intent on saving what cultural legacy is left.

He wanders into a town where he gets to kill a bunch of other self-destructive scum who don't have the sense to realize what a kick-butt kind of guy they're dealing with. The local demagogue wants to hire Eli, who has by now killed off most of the town's muscle.

Gary Oldman plays Carnegie, the top villain, and he oozes evil. Carnegie sends the daughter of his blind mistress (Jennifer Beals) to Eli's bedroom in order to entice him to stay. But he's a righteous man and he teaches her to say grace and recites to her from memory "The 23rd Psalm."

By now, Carnegie knows about the book. He's been seeking it all along and he wants it in order to expand his empire. The daughter's name is Solara and she's played by Mila Kunis who is dressed like a cover girl from "Seventeen" magazine. Apparently the nuclear holocaust targeted everything but boutiques. But that's just one of the movie's inconsistencies.

Against Eli's wishes, Solara tags along and thus gives him an opportunity to kill some more degenerates who either want to molest her or cook her. Actually, probably both.

With Carnegie and his armored road warriors in hot pursuit, the wanderers stumble onto an elderly couple. Played by Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour, they're hospitable geezers who like to make sandwiches out of their guests. This interlude is a rare bit of mordant humor in a movie that takes itself way too seriously.

Directing brothers Allen and Albert Hughes paint a bleak, washed-out landscape while delivering a sermon that religions can be manipulated for either good or bad. It's an obvious message and the siblings stand progressively taller in the pulpit as the movie unreels.

The Hughes brothers, who made the very good Jack the Ripper movie "From Hell," know how to set a scene and they use Washington to optimal effect. He's cool and he's bad in the pursuit of good and he's full of purpose.