In the near future, a nuclear holocaust known as The Flash causes an ecocide, which is the
mass destruction of nature. Now the USA is a post-apocalyptic wasteland and people have to
go to extremes to survive. Thirty years after The Flash in an ash-filled forest, a cat approaches a
rotting body to feed while nearby, Eli waits with an arrow ready. As soon as he hears the cat meow,
he shoots and instantly kills it. After picking up the cat, Eli keeps on traveling, only stopping
to check inside cars for anything useful besides skeletons. Eventually he finds an abandoned house,
and as he searches the rooms, he tries to fill his canteen but the taps don’t work. When he
opens a closet, the awful smell immediately alerts him of a hanging body, but that doesn’t stop him
from patting it up for anything useful. Afterward Eli cooks the cat while cleaning his weapons and
listening to his old iPod. The smell of roasted meat gets the attention of a rat, who Eli notices
when he hears it squeak and he shares some cat meat with it. After cleaning himself up with
wet napkins, Eli spends the night in the house reading his book and sleeping. The next morning,
he discovers his iPod is almost out of battery and the car battery rig he uses to charge it is about
to run out too. For now he keeps on traveling and in the middle of the road, he finds a woman
with a broken shopping cart asking for help. At that moment he detects a horrible smell and
calls out the thugs hiding nearby, noticing it’s just a trap. The gang comes out and the
leader starts pushing Eli around to rob him, but suddenly Eli cuts off the leader’s hand with his
machete. Then he fights the rest of the gang at the same time, quickly killing them all in just
a few minutes without getting a single scratch on him. It’s almost as if Eli was protected by
God. Then Eli kills the leader too but he lets the woman live. She has a bottle of water,
but as soon as he smells it, he can tell it isn’t good and drops it. After checking all the bodies
for any useful objects, he returns to the road, listening to his music until his iPod runs out of
power. When he walks near a destroyed highway, he hears a group of bikers attack a couple. Eli feels
bad but reminds himself not to get involved as the gang kills the man, takes advantage of the woman,
and steals all their books. Once the bikers are gone, Eli comes out of hiding and keeps going
until he finds a town where he enters the shop of the Engineer, who immediately threatens him with
his weapon. As soon as Eli hears this, he grabs the weapon to prove he’s stronger and quickly
gives it back, explaining he’s just a customer. Then he asks the Engineer to recharge his battery
rig, offering to pay with some wet napkins and a lighter as payment. While the Engineer works,
Eli goes to the bar across the street, where the killing bikers are visiting Carnegie, the warlord
in charge of this town. Carnegie is looking for a very specific book so all his henchmen bring him
any books they can find, although they can’t read the titles because they’re illiterate. He takes a
look at all the books they’ve brought today but what he wants isn’t there, so he sends them all
to be burned. His mood improves when gang leader Redridge reveals he’s also found a small sample
of shampoo, so Carnegie immediately goes to use it on his concubine Claudia, who is blind so she
greatly enjoys the smell and the head massage. Downstairs, Eli pays with gloves and a scarf to
get his canteen refilled. While taking out his things, he accidentally touches a cat, causing
it to hiss at him. The bartender gives the canteen to Claudia’s daughter Solara, who goes out back to
fill it. Redridge tries to block her way to show his interest in her, but she ignores him and joins
the line for water. Inside, a gang member gets mad because Eli touched his cat and tries to start a
fight, but Eli just slams his face against the bar and tries to leave. At that moment, the rest of
the gang attacks him, so Eli has no choice but to fight. With quick movements of his machete,
Eli fights all the thugs at the same time, killing them one by one without breaking a sweat. Soon all
the thugs are dead except for one, but when he’s about to kill him too, Solara comes back and begs
him to stop. The distraction causes Eli to get caught and taken to see Carnegie, who asks him to
become one of his men. Eli isn’t interested and tries to leave again but Carnegie forces him to
stay the night. Afterward Claudia brings Eli some food and he immediately can tell she’s blind, so
he asks her a few questions about her story. Then Carnegie sends Solara to Eli’s room to convince
him to stay by getting busy with him, only for Eli to turn her down. He also tries to kick her out,
but Solara explains Carnegie will hurt Claudia if she doesn’t do this, so Eli lets her stay for the
night. Since Solara doesn’t often see people of Eli’s age, she asks questions about life
before The Flash and Eli shares some stories. Solara also finds Eli’s book and gets excited,
asking about its contents because she can’t read, but Eli immediately covers it up and refuses to
discuss it. When he finally sits to eat, he shares the food with Solara and teaches her how to say
grace. The next morning Solara has breakfast with Claudia and recites the words Eli taught
her. Carnegie is shocked to hear this and demands to know how Solara learned it, hurting Claudia
when Solara doesn’t say much. Desperate to help her mother, Solara tells him that Eli has a book
with a weird symbol on it, making the cross with her fingers. It turns out Carnegie wants a Bible,
and Eli has the only one left in the world because all the others were burned down shortly after The
Flash. Excited, he orders Redrige to get him Eli’s book, but when they enter the room Eli is already
gone. Redridge immediately kills the guard for their mistake then sends his men to find Eli.
Meanwhile Eli gets his battery from the Engineer and tries to leave town, only for Carnegie to show
up and ask him for the book. He thinks the Bible is the best way to put society under his control
and is willing to kill Eli for it, yet Eli just keeps walking away. Suddenly Redridge shoots
Eli twice, but he misses both shots. Annoyed, Eli takes out his gun and starts shooting any
person he can hear moving, expertly landing every single shot while the bullets shot by the enemies
miss him every time. When he’s out of bullets in his gun, he takes out a shotgun and keeps killing
the thugs, hitting Carnegie in the leg in the process. Seeing as Eli truly has holy protection,
Redridge lets him leave for now. After Carnegie gets his leg treated by a doctor, he tries to
send the gang after Eli. However Redrige is wary after losing so many men, so he makes a deal:
he’ll get the book if Carnegie lets him have Solara as his concubine. Moments later, Elie
hears Solara following him. She explains Claudia sent her because she would be safer with him,
but Eli tries sending her away. Determined to change his mind, Solara offers to take him to the
town's water supply, which turns out to be a clean underground spring. Eli eagerly fills his canteen,
then he tricks Solara and locks her up in the cave so he can continue his journey alone. Soon
Solara manages to escape and tries to go after Eli, only to find the woman with the broken cart
instead. Solara tries to help her, but the woman tells her to leave, not wanting a young innocent
girl to fall for the trap. Suddenly two thugs attack Solara and after hitting her a few times,
they drag her to a private spot to take advantage of her. Her screaming allows Eli to find her and
he shoots a thug in the groin with an arrow then the other in the throat. Solara thanks Eli with
a hug and they leave together. Later on, Carnegie and Redridge find the bodies thanks to the birds
flying above them. They also find a piece of Solara’s clothing, so they know what direction to
take. On the road, Eli also hears a bird and uses an arrow to bring it down. While he picks the bird
up, he asks Solara to take the wire from his bow. When night falls, Eli and Solara decide to rest
in an old cooling tower. Solara asks Eli to read to her, so Eli shares a few lines before putting
the book away. Eli also shares that when he found the Bible, a voice told him where to go to keep
the book safe and that he would be protected. Then Solara asks him to teach her how to read,
but he doesn’t respond, so Solara waits for him to fall asleep to try to take the book. However as
soon as she opens the zip, Eli opens his eyes and makes her step away from the bag. The next day the
duo keeps on traveling and eventually they find a house with a sign that says "no trespassing",
but they don’t see it and approach the door. Suddenly a trap opens under their feet and they
fall into a hole before the door opens to reveal Martha and George, an armed elderly couple who
have lived in this house since before The Flash. They ask why they didn't obey the sign and when
Eli apologizes with kind words and manners, they decide to let them in. At first the chat goes well
and they share some lovely tea, however things get awkward when the couple shows them the backyard
where they keep all the bodies of those who tried to attack their house. Eli tells Solara they
should go because the couple are cannibals, and he keeps his gun out to stop them from blocking their
way. However on their way out, Carnegie and his gang arrive in cars. Eli and Solara immediately go
back inside and George reveals a huge collection of weapons hiding in the sofa. Using a megaphone,
Carnegie tells Eli to send out Salara with the book to avoid a fight. A package flows out of
the window and Redridge rushes to grab it, but instead of the Bible he finds a bomb. He runs to
hide right before the explosion happens, blowing up two of the cars and killing several thugs.
Carnegie’s men immediately open fire on the house, and Eli responds by throwing a grenade.
An annoyed Redridge retaliates by shooting a missile and blowing half the house up, killing
Martha. Furious, George starts shooting like a maniac and kills as many thugs as he can until
the enemy takes out a Gatling gun to kill him and make the others surrender. Soon Eli and Solara are
surrounded and dragged out of the house. Carnegie threatens to kill Solara, so Eli has no choice but
to tell him he hid the book in the TV. Redridge retrieves the book and gives it to Carnegie, who
lets go of Solara and shoots Eli in the stomach. Eli tries standing up with a dagger in hand,
but Carnegie kicks him down and leaves with his men, bringing Solara along. In one of the vans,
Redridge puts Eli's machete on the dashboard while Solara takes out the wire from Eli’s bow,
using it to choke the driver and causing the van to flip a couple of times until it stops. As the
other cars turn around to check what happened, Solara goes to the driver's seat and finds a
grenade, which she throws at the vehicles to blow up one more. Then she jumps to the driver's seat
and discovers Redridge has been impaled by Eli's machete. He’s still alive and manages to pull the
machete out, but as soon as he steps out of the van, he dies. Afterward Solara drives away and
Carnegie decides not to go after her in the last car because he already has the book. When Solara
arrives at the house, she can’t find Eli, so she keeps driving until she finds him on the
road still trying to reach his destination. She immediately puts him in the van and he wraps up
his wound with duct tape. After a few hours of driving, they make it to the Golden Gate Bridge,
which is broken and can’t be crossed. Eli mentions they are close, so they find a row boat to travel
to Alcatraz Island. When Eli is too tired to keep rowing, Solara does it for him. Back in town,
Carnegie fails to open the book because it has a very strong lock on it. He calls the Engineer
to unlock it and gets excited to finally read it, only to discover it’s in Braille. It turns out Eli
has been blind since the very beginning, that’s why he only reacts to things when he hears them,
smells them, or touches them. Desperate, Carnegie asks Claudia to read the book for him. Claudia is
clearly happy to read Braille again, but she lies to him, saying she’s forgotten how to do it. She
also explains she can smell his wounded leg and that it’s infected, so nobody will respect him
anymore. Carnegie checks the bar and discovers the locals are looting it, not to mention his men are
fighting each other, so he collapses in despair. Back in Alcatraz, an armed guard receives the duo
and Eli convinces him to let them pass by saying he has a Bible. They meet with a curator who has
been gathering all kinds of art from before The Flash to preserve humanity’s history and
hopefully rebuild someday. They don’t have a copy of the Bible, so Eli reveals he’s memorized it
all and starts dictating it so the curator can make his own copy. The task takes a long time,
so Eli takes breaks to shave and change into clean clothes. After lots of work, the new Bible is
finally completed, and Eli dies at peace from the gunshot wound. Once Eli is buried in Alcatraz's
courtyard garden and a bound copy of the Bible is added to the collection, Solara leaves,
listening to Eli’s iPod and carrying his machete on her way back to her mother.