"The computer-generated wolves have more personality than any of the dull characters in The Grey" saids USA Today reviewer Claudia Puig...............She goes on to say: "Wolves are much maligned in literature and films".... "The Grey (* * stars out of four, R, opens Friday) takes the notion of their vicious natures to new extremes as dozens of hulking, bright-eyed beasts attack a ragtag assortment of plane-crash survivors with startling ferocity"........... "When they're not ripping people to shreds — as seen up close and personal through an annoyingly shaky camera — they're lurking ominously nearby, howling and growling"................Ms. Puig comes the closest of any film reviewer to acknowledging that wolves are "maligned in literature and films"................but she, like her collective body of film critic colleagues fails to follow up on this theme and chooses not to question the validity of how The Grey's Director, Joe Carnahan , chooses to portray Wolf behavior in the wild..............I will not see this film...............Mr. Carnahan was either negligent in his research,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or just said, screw the facts,,,,,,I am going to play on peoples mi-information and am going to scare the s..t out of them by making the wolves out to be evil and blatant killers.................Why not he likely thought,,,,,,,,,should make for box office bonanza------I root for a dismal opening weekend............4 THUMBS DOWN FOR HIM AND ACTOR LIAM NEESON AND CREW

 

 

 

 

 

'The Grey': Drab, but the wolves look great

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

 What starts as a tense and moody survival thriller fairly quickly becomes tedious, forced and far-fetched as a septet of men is preyed upon by a wolf pack in the Alaska wilderness.

Wolves are much maligned in literature and films. The Grey (* * stars out of four, R, opens Friday) takes the notion of their vicious natures to new extremes as dozens of hulking, bright-eyed beasts attack a ragtag assortment of plane-crash survivors with startling ferocity. When they're not ripping people to shreds — as seen up close and personal through an annoyingly shaky camera — they're lurking ominously nearby, howling and growling.

Liam Neeson stars as Ottway, a melancholy loner working among oil-rig roughnecks. Apparently, it's his job to keep the work site safe from animal attacks. When he's not shooting the furry denizens, he's obsessing over a letter he wrote to a woman he loved and lost. He spends a good portion of the movie rereading that letter. He has recurring dreams about his beloved lying in gauzy sheets, and he often recites the lines of a trite poem and consistently reaffirms his lack of religious faith. Fresh moves are clearly not this guy's thing.

Subtlety is not a trait preferred by writer-director Joe Carnahan (The A Team), either. Early on, Neeson's Ottway sticks a shotgun in his mouth. Why he doesn't pull the trigger is left unexplained.

Next, he boards a small plane bound for Anchorage. Shortly after takeoff, turbulence rocks the plane and it crashes spectacularly in what looks like Arctic tundra. Bodies and plane parts are mangled and scattered across the icy landscape. Ottway takes charge, rounding up the half-dozen survivors and calming a dying man.

This all seems out of character for a guy who a few scenes earlier had seemingly lost the will to live. But he's still no match for the menacing wolves.

Suspense devolves into a rote tale of man vs. beast. The survivors don't fully capture our sympathies because no one is given much dimension. Verbal nastiness erupts occasionally between the humans, but most of their time is spent trudging through snowdrifts and getting into bloody tussles with wolves.

In a climactic scene, the wolf pack inexplicably stands patiently, waiting for Ottway to get ready, arm himself and take a few moments to recite a snippet of a hackneyed poem before they attack. It's as if they were instructed on the gentlemanly art of battle.

In every other scene, the wolves come off as more brutal than bears, sharks and anacondas combined. With its reliance on jolts, sudden movements and thunderous sounds, The Grey is more startling than frightening.
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'The Grey' slammed for 'bloodthirsty' portrayal of wolves

  L.A. Times

 

"The Grey," the survival thriller starring Liam Neeson as a man who must battle bloodthirsty wolves to survive, is poised to reign at the box office this weekend.
But not if animal rights activists have anything to say about it.

The film stars Neeson as an oil refinery sharpshooter who finds himself fighting the elements and bloodthirsty wolves following a plane crash. As might be expected, harsh outcomes abound for man and beast.

But animal rights activists say the film is folly, and will only add to the persistent misrepresentation in TV, film and literature of the wolf as an aggressive, man-hunting creature. In fact, experts say, wolves fear humans and avoid interaction at all costs.

PETA, People for the Ethical Treament of Animals, is among those urging a boycott of the film: "The writers paint a pack of wolves living in the Alaskan wilderness as bloodthirsty monsters, intent on killing every survivor of a plane crash by tearing each person limb from limb."

The Wolf Conservation Center is taking a different approach, using the film as a platform to raise awareness about the perils facing wolves in the wild and how their real-live nature diverges from the Hollywood portrayal.

"In reality, wild wolves are shy and elusive," the center's website says. "A person in wolf country has a greater chance of being hit by lightning...than being injured by a wolf."

WolfWatcher.org, meanwhile, is taking Neeson and writer / director Joe Carnahan to task for engaging in on-set bonding by actually eating wolf meat.

Carnahan has downplayed criticism by saying that there are in fact reports of wolves turning on man, but says that ultimately the film is about a man's inner journey to find his survival instincts.

Carnahan himself told our sister blog, Greenspace, that he wants the wolves to be seen in the right light: “I never intended [the wolves] to be the aggressor; I look at them as the defenders. I think these guys are in a very territorially sensitive place. [The humans] were trespassing and intruders.”

 

Wolfwatcher.org is nonetheless urging wildlife activists to print out flyers describing the true nature of wolves -- such as their desire to avoid humans at all costs -- and hand them out at local movie theaters showing "The Grey."

"This film comes out at the worst of times, when wolves are literally fighting for their lives," the organization says on its site.

The movie, which opens today in 2,700 theaters nationwide, is expected to make about $14 million, according to Box Office Guru. Animal rights activists will surely howl, but our review calls this thriller is "a solid January surprise."