The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
EXT. ARCHETYPICAL POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE
DENZEL WASHINGTON walks down a desolate road towards SEPIA FILTER, CALIFORNIA. It is a time of EXCESSIVE BASS LEVELS and rusted metal since STAINLESS STEEL and PAINT never existed. Suddenly, he is AMBUSHED!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides...
He KILLS the BAD GUYS to FUCKING DEATH, then goes to RADIO SHACK, which is run by TOM WAITS.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Hello unnecessary cultural reference Tom Waits. I need you to charge my Apple iPod, which has inexplicably survived the apocalypse, making me wish I had loaded it with more than the Matchbox 20 discography.
TOM WAITS
Well, I'm glad we're keeping things realistic.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
We have to make it flagrantly clear that I'm from the before times, in case the audience couldn't figure that out from from the trailer. Or from empirical observation. Or just a wild fucking guess. Now please charge my Apple iPod made by Apple. Apple: Think Different.
TOM WAITS
I'll hook it up to my steampunk Rube Goldberg generator once I reset the chicken. Also, since electricity is an understandably scarce commodity here, you'll need to go find 15 Nuka-Colas for me.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
How about a few KFC wet-naps and a Zippo lighter?
TOM WAITS
Sold. By the way, do you want me to put my albums on your iPod? Most of it sounds like Dr. Claw grunting unintelligbly to folk music, but it was apparently well known enough for me to get this role.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
No thanks.
DENZEL goes to the BAR to get WATER. SEVERAL MINUTES are spent showing that commonplace objects like GLOVES AND WATER are now RARE AND EXPENSIVE, just in case the AUDIENCE forgot it was the POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE. Suddenly, he is AMBUSHED! For NO REASON!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
And shepherds we shall be, for thee, My Lord, for thee...
He KILLS the BAD GUYS to FUCKING DEATH. GARY OLDMAN is intrigued.
GARY OLDMAN
What brings a grizzled, world-weary kensei like yourself out here?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
I'll give you a vague, non-committal answer that only serves to make me more suspicious.
GARY OLDMAN
You seem like a trustworthy fellow, allow me to introduce myself. I'm the self-appointed mayor of this town. My duties include searching for the Bible, being cartoonishly evil, and speaking in a painfully bad American accent. You should come work for me. We have fresh water and apparently a Sunglass Hut. Oh, and if you don't join, I'll kill you.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Fuck you.
GARY OLDMAN
I like your style. Please, stay in one of our guest rooms, consume our precious resources, and fuck my stepdaughter.
MILA KUNIS is sent to bang DENZEL.
MILA KUNIS
Hey stranger...
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Shut up, Meg.
MILA KUNIS
Gary wants me to awkwardly seduce you so you'll come work for him.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Eh, I'm good. I have a secret book that I need to keep secret. Here, let me give you indisputable proof that I have it so you can thoughtlessly blab it to Gary, since you're a clueless twit.
She DOES. GARY'S henchmen try to kill DENZEL to get his BOOK, but the BULLETS mysteriously miss him. For some reason, NO ONE tries GETTING CLOSER to shoot him. DENZEL escapes and MILA decides to tag along.
MILA KUNIS
Your simple prayer has inspired me to blindly follow whatever you say.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Yup, that's pretty much the idea. Let's go.
(pause)
I changed my mind, fuck off.
(pause)
Okay, come on.
INT. COOLING TOWER WHICH CAN BE SEEN FOR MILES
DENZEL and MILA sit around a fire making S'MORES.
MILA KUNIS
So I should probably ask what exactly this book is that I've been nearly raped and murdered over. You know, if you feel like sharing.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
A voice in my head told me to do this, as voices in my head are wont to do.
(pause)
Soon, my pet. Anyway, it told me to find a book and head for Alcatraz. It said people would kill for this book and I should keep it a secret, so it helpfully found me a copy with a giant, gold crucifix on the cover. I've spent the last 30 years walking out here to drop it off.
MILA KUNIS
30 years? Wow, that sounds implausibly dangerous in this murderous wasteland.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
No, it's cool. The voice has guided me.
MILA KUNIS
Wait, you've known exactly where to head for 30 years? Even if you only walked a mile a day, you'd get across the country in 8! How have you not been killed a hundred times over?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
The voice also said I would be protected on my journey.
MILA KUNIS
Ah, by keeping you out here as long as possible, that makes sense. What's so special about this book?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
It has the power to make annoying 90's sitcom co-stars follow you around incessantly. Spreading this book is what actually caused the apocalypse in the first place.
MILA KUNIS
I see. So did you figure out how to prevent that from happening again?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Hm?
EXT. ARCHETYPICAL POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE
DENZEL and MILA walk along the highway. Suddenly, they are AMBUSHED! AGAIN!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Be not that far from me, for trouble is near; haste Thee to help me...
DENZEL, MILA, and DUMBLEDORE are unable to KILL the BAD GUYS to FUCKING DEATH. GARY finally manages to shoot DENZEL. MILA lobs a GRENADE perfectly even though she has NEVER USED ONE BEFORE. GARY gets the KING MACGUFFIN VERSION BIBLE.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Fine, take it! It's the version with that typo in the Ten Commandments anyway, and I doodled in margins and scratched out all the dirty parts! Heretic!
GARY pries open the BIBLE. It's written in BRAILLE! This is a GOOD TWIST.
GARY OLDMAN
The tragic irony! If only I could somehow force my blind wife to read it for me, just like I've forced her to do pretty much anything I wanted throughout the entire movie!
(pause)
Oh well.
(dies)
INT. ALCATRAZ
MILA and DENZEL finally arrive at their destination. MALCOLM MCDOWELL wants to know what the fuck they want.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL
As the last bastion of academics on the planet, we require you to have something of great and verifiable scholarly value.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
I have the Bible memorized. Take my word for it.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL
Good enough for me!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Let me just remove my sunglasses...
DENZEL is BLIND! This is a RETARDED TWIST.
MILA KUNIS
Wait a second. Are you fucking shitting me? You're blind? How does any of this goddamn movie make sense if you've been blind the whole time?!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Remember all the times I bumped into things and reacted to noises? It's clever, see?
MILA KUNIS
Scattering "clues" throughout the plot that had no impact and would have otherwise gone unnoticed and then tying them into a twist at the end doesn't make it a clever movie, it makes it a Scooby-Doo episode! And that still doesn't explain how in 30 years, you never walked off a ledge, twisted your ankle in a pothole, or managed to become a goddamn ninja!
DENZEL WASHINGTON
I was guided and protected by God!
MILA KUNIS
No, you sanctimonious twat, movies don't work like that. You can't expect the audience to suddenly suspend their disbelief when you've never given them any previous indication that they need to! Would The Sixth Sense have worked if no one ever mentioned Haley Joel Osment can see dead people and they never actually showed the ghosts?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
The point is my faith and religion got a blind person through all those obstacles, even if it does render the entire plot completely ludicrous!
MILA KUNIS
Why are you blind to begin with? You don't have to be blind to know Braille, it could have been one line of fucking dialogue! "Hey, remember that time I taught my little brother to read Braille?" Fuck this, I would rather go back to Rapeville-upon-Murderton than stick around you dipshits another minute.
(leaves)
MALCOLM MCDOWELL
Anyway, since you're mortally wounded, I thought we'd start with the Old Testament even though we already have a copy of the Torah.
DENZEL WASHINGTON
In the beginning, God created the heavens and th--gasp--Earth--gargle--
DENZEL dies from THE GUNSHOT WOUND THAT WOULD HAVE KILLED HIM DAYS AGO.
END