Reviews

I don't usually leave film reviews but after watching The Grey I felt an overwhelming desire to save people from the absurdity of this shockingly poor and very disappointing film.

It was a good start with a convincing plane crash followed by an engaging 'dazed and confused post crash' scene. After this, a touching scene, where Neeson supports a fatally injured passenger through his impending death. I thought I was on to a winner but then, like the fatally wounded passenger, it took a turn for the worse.

When some mean, blood thirsty, man-eating wolves appear I started to doubt the premise of the film. I'm no wolf expert but I'm almost certain wolves don't hunt people in this way. They certainly don't viciously attack small groups of people minding their own business sitting by a campfire. The film implies that wolves are vengeful and spiteful and want to kill humans off for the sake of it, which simply isn't true.

Neeson did what he could with the repellent and clichéd survival-expert character he had been given, but not one for the top of his CV. The others' performances were uninteresting and their characters came across as somewhat stupid. They learned relatively quickly that a wolf could attack them at any moment and yet they don't think to carry some sort of weapon like a branch or a rock or say the big fat knife that was used to cut the wolfs head off! But enough of the wolves, they're not even the worst thing about the movie.

It continues along a path of crass ideas, my favourite being the group jumping off a cliff in to some tall trees in a bid to escape their toothy attackers. That was obviously not going to end well, and the rationale behind this act just added more absurdity to the film. Some very poor character development was attempted half way through the film by way of a boring campfire heart to heart, but this was too little too late, as by this time I really didn't care if any of them survived.

I'm not sure if I was missing something but what actually happened to Ottway's wife? If she died just tell us. I don't want to have to spend the duration of the film trying to figure it out when it seems to be to be mostly irrelevant to the plot anyway. The attempted religious undertones of the movie were confusing and also irrelevant and made me ask what was this film actually about? Survival? Faith? Man-eating wolves? It couldn't really make up its mind.

An hour and a half in to the film I kept watching, confident that Neeson was going to get himself out of this wolf infested Alaskan hell. But alas, instead I watched him fannying around for what felt like hours, piling up the wallets of his dead buddies (why?), whilst looking through their wallet sized family photographs. Cue sad piano music for emotional effect: but still I felt nothing because I really didn't give two hoots about these guys. To be fair to this scene however, the sad piano music may be its only redeeming feature, a beautiful piece by Jamin Winans.

At last the finale. A bit of action I thought. Finally Neeson is face to face with the alpha male of the pack with a knife and some airoplane miniatures duck taped to his hands...show time. But NO! It was almost as though the filmmakers had gone over budget. Despite the fight scene actually being filmed (and appearing in the trailer!) the producers decided not to use it. Instead of watching what could have been a high octane wolf Vs man duel, I had to wait until the credits finished rolling for a two second shot of some fur and the back of Neeson's head. I can only assume this was a ploy to force me to make up my own mind as to who won this supposed battle.

I actually felt angered and cheated at the end of this movie and I despise any film that makes me feel like this. It is everything I hate about bad movie making condensed in to two hours of my life that I will never get back.

Throw it to the wolves and don't waste your time.