Review of The Grey (2012) by William T — 04 Sep 2013

To be honest, I thought about stopping WillyT Reviews. I'm at college now and I have less free time to watch movies and I might have better things to do. Plus I have to admit my last few reviews have been less than average, an A for Effort if you will. I love movies and I love what I have built, and still building with this blog. Then I sat down with my roommate and watched The Grey and its movies like this that made me want to keep going. WillyT Reviews forever!

Liam Neeson has built quite a career for himself being the trainer of Batman, Obi-Wan, two different Gods, and in Schindler's List. With a lead actor like Neeson it is hard for a movie to fail. Liam Neeson and a group of Oil Riggers are on a plane in bad weather. Everybody knows that 9 times out of ten that plane goes down. The plane goes down in the middle of the Alaskan tundra and they battle the cold and hungry wolves. I have to call shenanigans a lot during this movie as most things don't make sense and would probably never ever happen. Just about everything is wrong with this movie. I don't care about any of the characters, there are a few loose ends, and there is no ending.

There are seven characters and I don't consider this a spoiler but most of them die. In a movie like this it is obvious that most of them would die. I can't tell you the names of any of them. There is the idiot who dies peeing, the annoying guy, the guy with the glasses, the black guy, Liam Neeson, the arrogant guy who thinks he should be leader but grows as a person from the experience, and the other guy. Names, I don't remember names, names aren't important. I can't even remember Neeson's name and I watched it the night before this was written. It's safe to say this was an awful movie.

I was under the impression this movie was about wolves killing people with Liam Neeson. Well, at least they got Neeson right, sort of. The wolves are there but they aren't that important. They are built up at the main fear and antagonist but that lasts about 30% of the entire movie. The wolves kill two people and eat a third who was already dead. A guy goes to take a leak and gets mauled by a few wolves. The old guy-alone-and-gets-eaten cliché. It never fails. The other guy has a connection with Neeson, the main character, and he dies way too early. He is one of the few people to interact with Neeson prior to the crash and he gets killed off. He could have been developed and died in an epic and emotional way. Another guy gets sick while another idiot falls out of a tree. These characters were not only boring, they died in the stupidest way ever. One of the last guys sits on a log and quits. He taps out and its assumed he dies and is eaten. We didn't even get to see it.

The end to this movie was worse than the series finale of The Sopranos. The Sopranos cut off kid sentence and that is basically what happened here. The movie sets up the wolves verses the humans, sort of, and it hints towards a big battle against the alpha wolf at the end. Great, I wanted to see Liam Neeson destroy wolves the entire time. It doesn't happen. Liam Neeson shoots a wolf in the way beginning and that is it. Liam Neeson was a loser in this movie. He could have been played by anybody on this planet. He is there for the battle, he gets ready, the alpha wolf is there, it charges, music cuts, black screen, cue credits. That was it. The movie ended. We got screwed out of an ending.

Throughout the movie there are hints towards the past, especially with Neeson. Neeson is with his wife and all she says is "don't be afraid" that is all we know about her. We can assume she died but she is simply there to try and add depth to a lame character. We learn about others past in a buddy- buddy campfire conversation. You see this all the time and it works every time. I'm a sucker for a good conversation at a campfire. Liam Neeson gets his depth when he talks about his father and the poem. That was the best aspect of the story but it was a flash in the pan.

Overall, The Grey is a disaster. The story had potential but the audience got screwed out of an ending. The deaths of characters were lazy and poorly written and there were loose ends. What happened to the guy on the log? What happened to his wife and why was she important? What happened to Liam Neeson at the end? Most importantly, why didn't we get to see Liam Neeson kick some wolf butt? I really should be thanking this movie as it rejuvenated my will to review movies. This is one of my best reviews in a while but is easily one of the worst movies I have seen n a while. The Grey gets An A for Effort.