Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of the winter
formula that has started off by taking
Liam Neeson and putting him in a movie (Taken, Unknown) in which he plays a
stoic badass. It’s not that Liam Neeson
doesn’t play tough guy well- he totally does- it’s just that I feel like he is
such a powerful actor that his talents could be better put to work in more
dynamic roles. That said, I loved “The
Grey.” The plot could not be
simpler. Neeson plays Ottway, the man
tasked with protecting
the workers at an Alaskan drilling station. On his trip home, the plane crashes in the
middle of the Alaskan wilderness and Neeson must lead his fellow survivors to
safety. This film actually fits into a
genre that I haven’t seen done well in a while; namely the monster movies from
the 90s. In these movies the characters
are slowly picked off one by one until the dramatic conclusion when the last
one or two characters figure out the necessary information to defeat whatever
is killing them.
The big difference in this movie is that rather then some
shadow in the forests hunting our survivors, we have a pack of poorly CGI-ed
wolves (one of my few complaints).
Luckily Neeson’s Ottway is very familiar with the wolves of the area and
serves as a pocket encyclopedia to the rest of the survivors, telling them what
the wolves are doing and thinking. This
comes off as less “I know wolves” and a lot more “wolf-whisperer,” but it
doesn’t detract from the story much and it allows many parallels to be drawn
between the pack of wolves hunting the survivors and the survivors
themselves. The wolves are obviously
stronger, faster, and better suited for the terrain then seven regular Joes,
but the wolves only ever seem to attack the group when they are doing something
wrong, such as fighting amongst themselves or letting one of their own fall
behind the group. It’s almost as if the
wolves are trying to teach them a lesson about teamwork.
