Monday, October 22, 2012

the grey

Ron and I watched The Grey this evening, thanks to Netflix. Liam Neesam, need I say more? I hadn't caught it at the theater, and had been eyeing on disk. Thank you, Netflix for saving me some money.

The scenery is stunning. The snow and more snow and rugged terrain of Alaska or northern Canada, probably. There are some interesting cinematic moments. There's Liam to look at. There is a lot of disappointment.

The next bit is spoilers, but I think you're better off reading them than trying to sit through the movie, honestly. The premise of the film is that a plane crashes in the snowy wilderness, and the survivors try to hike to civilization. As if the crash itself, the wilderness and the extreme cold weren't enough, there are wolves. Not normal wolves, some kind of semi-sentient (evidently) evil wolves who hold a grudge (or something) and would rather chase and kill the crash survivors one by one for the effect of killing them - you know because they all ready have a full pantry up there in the wilds - instead of eating them. And they travel together in the hundreds, if not thousands. And behave not at all wolf like. Pretty much.

The whole terrible sort-of-supernatural wolf thing killed this movie for me. Because of the poorly portrayed wolves, I could not suspend my belief enough to enter that world and be entertained by it. It had the potential for a very grey introspective look at a man deciding whether to live or die. I could be interested in that. But, no. The overly dramatized wolves really took it apart for me. It would have been a much more entertaining venture with the wolves totally in the background, and the conflict based more around the natural world, much like, "To Build a Fire." Jack London, where are you when we need you?

2 comments:

Fran said...

I was afraid that was the case. Thanks for taking the bullet for us!

Linda said...

Ron and I saw that one a few weeks back (also on Netflix lol). Thought it was good until the ending. I just kept thinking he'd make it.