Rating: 14/20
Plot: Following a plane crash, Qui-Gon and five other men try to survive brutal temperatures, blizzards, a lack of supplies and vittles, and mostly some really mean wolves. Or werewolves. It's possible that I watched a werewolf story and didn't even realize it. One by one, the monsters pick them off until Qui-Gon decides to end things once and for all with what he does best--a staring contest. Just like on the poster!
I actually spent the last three and a half hours having a staring contest with Liam Neeson on the poster for The Grey until I realized that I didn't have a chance of winning. That's how I felt about the human characters in this story, too, and throughout the movie, I prepared myself to be as pissed as I ever get when watching movies because I just knew that at least one of these characters--probably the one on the poster--was going to survive the experience. What impresses me about this movie is the harsh climate these actors had to endure. I assume the settings were real anyway because I couldn't see evidence that any of it was effects enhanced. And I'm pretty sure this is just the latest move by Liam Neeson to try to convince the world that he's a bad ass. I think his goal is to be in Expendables 8 or something. I thought the reactions and dialogue of the characters felt realistic, too. What didn't seem real at all were the wolves, and they distracted me. I'm not entirely sure the wolves were even supposed to be real and were there more as symbols, making this feel more like an allegory than an "Inspired by a True Story" thing like Alive or The Expendables. If it's truly an allegory, I wonder what each of the dudes represents. Aside from Guy Who Believes in the Afterlife and Guy Who Doesn't and Guy Everybody Seems to Hate, they aren't exactly fully realized. There are plenty of intense moments in this--a plane crash with interrupted dream sequences, wolves jumping from the darkness like they think this is a horror movie, Liam's prayer in which he calls out God, the frightening moment when you realize that Liam Neeson is going to have to wear that same sweater for the duration--and the experience is aided by shaky-cam and quick edits. Add a death in this to the list of terrible movie deaths when a guy is attacked by wolves while urinating. I almost made my plot synopsis "Guys get attacked by wolves mid-sentence and sometimes mid-pee."
Ottway's Prayer, which won't be confused with the Lord's Prayer: "Do something. Do something. You phony [censored word] fraudulent [censored word]. Do something! Come on! Prove it! [Censored word] faith! Earn it! Show me something real! I need it now. Not later. Now! Show me and I'll believe in your until the day I die. I swear. I'm calling on you. I'm calling on you! Fuck it. I'll do it myself."
I like that prayer. Have to remember to use it someday.
ReplyDeleteThis movie just wore me down. I gave it a chance in the beginning, but the characters are not compelling (with the one creep especially irritaing and unbelievable), and I bought the wolves less and less. The scene where I completely checked out was when the makeshift rope breaks, the guy is falling off the cliff, and a character runs and catches the the retreating rope, outrunning gravity.
Soon afterward I started to glimpse where this was going, and could not believe they might kill off everyone, and not only that, but do it in more and more depressing ways. Unlike you, I was pissed I had spent 90 minutes watching a pointless film that didn't work as drama or horror. Yeah, Neeson was good and can do this stuff in his sleep, but what a downer. Maybe Neeson was knocked unconscious in the crash, and his wolf-obsessed mind violently dispatched the group of dickheads that surrounded him, before eventually giving in to be reuinted with his under-the-blanket chick. I like that movie better than this one. A 10.
Yeah, I can see what you're saying here. Maybe I went a little too easy on this one.
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