'The Grey' Review

Rated R, Action/Thriller

Opinion going in:
Opinion coming out:


Language: Apparently, being in a plane crash and being hunted by wolves... completly destroys a person's vocabulary. Everything was F this, and F that... Seriously... EVERYTHING. It reminded me of some kind of 'inner-city high school gang' movie.

Action: Lots of shaky cam. There was a serious feeling of panic and threat that drug you in... but ehhh... not what I was hoping for.

Heroic Violence/Gore: There was SOME.... I'm not sure if there's as much as I remember. There were lots of goreing and biting... and the 'remenents' of victims... but honestly combined with the shakey cam it was hard to know exactly WHAT I was supposed to have just seen. You just know that whatever it was.,... was supposed to be BAD....

Nudity/'Character development': Nada. Lots of talk... but thankfully nothing else

SPECIAL EFFECTS: I remember hearing how the cgi wolves were 'spotty at best'... honestly I give it better credit than that. I was never sure where the real wolves were and where the fake ones were, so that's probably as good of praise as you can give...


REVIEW

I was very disappointed. Another example of where horrid language ruined a movie for me. The plot was excellent. The scenery was gorgeous. I LOVE Liam Neeson.... And the review I read were going four stars all around....

So I REALLY had high hopes...

Honestly, after watching this... I wish I had saved my free ticket for something else. It was basically 'the Edge' with Anthony Hopkins. However, the Edge did the same movie with less foul language and was completly enjoyable..

Now I want to watch THAT again

When the voice-over at the beginning of the film told you that the guys that worked for this Alaskan oil conglomerate were rough and tumble fellows who were sent out there into the middle of nowhere because most were ex-convicts and the like . . . well, immediately you probably realize you're dealing with an entirely different element than "The Edge" threw at you.

The language was nasty, but the element of characters dealt with in the show set you up for that.

Perhaps I'm getting used to the shaky cam thing, because I honestly had no issues with it at all. I was able to decipher the majority of what went on without difficulty, and even found myself on the edge of my seat in a couple of the situations in the film. I give them loads of credit for that because it rarely happens with me (especially in a film that isn't one I'm truly looking forward to, such as "Lord of the Rings" or the new Batman films). The story-telling was honestly very good . . .

. . . up to that point. And when we reached that point, I was sorely, agonizingly, disastrously disappointed . . .

That point didn't entirely ruin the film for me, but it tried awfully hard!

I don't know if the script was written like that or someone made an executive decision, but whomever did so should never, never, never, ever work in the film industry again.

I won't say there weren't films that have done this premise better. Absolutely there were! This one was pretty decent for what it was though: a great lead for Liam Neeson and a way to make wolves look incredibly cool! (No more will I have doubts about wolf attacks in my games, thank you very much!)

Then, that happened . . .

/shudders