"I tried to give this film credit(Liam Neeson in The Grey opening Jan 27) , but the themes are all over the place. Is it about accepting your inevitable demise? Is it about respecting how dangerous nature really is? Is it about scary wolves? The more you think about it, the less cohesive it seems, but chances are you’ll stop thinking about it once you leave the theater. In this economy, I would advise you to worry less about The Grey and hang on to The Green"---Reviewer Trevor Gentry-Birnbaum........THIS MOVIIE PROVIDES AN INNACUARATE AND PLAIN WRONG DEPICTION OF HOW WOLVES BEHAVE IN THE WILD.........THE AGE OLD BIG BAD WOLF THEME OF WOLVES STALKING MAROONED HUMANS WHOSE PLANE HAS CRASHED IN THE WILDERNESS-----THE SHAME OF IT ALL IS THAT THE TYPICAL MOVIEGOER COMES AWAY BELIEIVING THAT WOLVES ARE MANEATERS---NOT!......I HAVE POSTED THE MOVIE TRAILER ON THE BLOG IF YOU CARE TO WITNESS HOW THE PRODUCERS OF THIS FILM(AS MY FIREND CRISTINA EISENBERG SAIDS) DISPLAY "MORAL BANKRUPTCY" IN THEIR VERY WRONG VISUALIZATION OF HOW WOLVES BEHAVE IN THE WILD

THE GREY
Action
Drama
Thriller - OPENS 27 January 2012 (USA)


In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders.

Director: Joe Carnahan

Writers: Joe Carnahan (screenplay), Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (screenplay)

Stars:Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney and Frank Grillo
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THE FOLLOWING(SELECTIVELY EDITED  BY BLOGGER RICK) REVIEW IS BY Trevor Gentry-Birnbaum spends most of his time sitting about and dodging attacks from Lady Gaga fans. His assorted brain farts usually end up on his tumblr blog, “It’s Real Terrible:” itsrealterrible.tumblr.com. You can follow him on Twitter @annefrankwashot, but he rarely updates

. Following a very well shot plane crash that perfectly captures the disorientation and fear associated with being in such a disaster,  the first half of The Grey relies on the formula of having wolves attack and kill one member of their party, the wolves backing off, followed by an emotional exchange between the men. Rinse and repeat. Emotions among the sausage fest of survival are all over the place: they go from watching their friends die in one scene to talking about the lousy sex they had before the trip in the next.

 Director Joe Carnahan keeps throwing CGI wolves at them. Action maestro Carnahan, director of The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces, developed the screen play with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who wrote the short story the movie is based on, “The Ghost Walker.” It’s no surprise that this story comes from another medium. It’s just not paced right for a film. The frequent attacks from the wolves, and their subsequent ceasing later on, never feels threatening. It’s just “here come the wolves again. I wonder who they’ll kill.”

Sure, at times the wolves are scary, but that’s mostly the result of overtly loud sound effects that make the wolves’ breathing sound like jet exhaust. Ottway is the resident wolf expert, so he’s in charge.
The real disappointment of this film is that the great elements are there, but they’re so obscured by wolf feces that they don’t register. It’s possible the wolves were meant to represent death. The alpha of the pack (essentially the Big Bad) is all black, like the Grim Reaper.  The wolf attacks do drop off in the second half of the movie and it’s then when it’s at its best. They eventually return in time for a ridiculously over the top ending that threatens to eliminate all of the emotional poignancy that was developed in the favor of action movie swagger.

There was a good movie here about trying to survive the circumstances of their crash and the seemingly objective weather of the Alaskan tundra, but wolves got shoved up its ass and everything else got forgotten. Some of the things the characters say about the nature of life and death are very poignant, but are completely lost by parts of the film that just focus on how bad-ass Liam Neeson is. It’s a shame; it could have been a real think-piece, but instead it ended up another entry in the Survival/Horror genre and not a particularly innovative one at that.