I'm usually not excited when i see Liam Neeson Trailers for some reason, hes a great actor i just never enjoy his movies.. but this one looks awesome.. i hope it doesn't disappoint
Genre: Action | Drama | Thriller Synopsis: 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. Running Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Director: Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) Writers: Joe Carnahan (Narc), Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (Death Sentence) Stars: Liam Neeson (Schindler's List), Dermot Mulroney (Young Guns), Frank Grillo (Warrior), Dallas Roberts (3:10 to Yuma)
The Grey isn't simply two hours of Liam Neeson fighting wolves -- it's much more than that. And surprisingly, it's a terrific two hours that will keep you engaged and leave you impressed.
Joe Carnahan, director of such films as The A-Team and Smokin' Aces, is like a completely different helmer here -- this time favoring substance over style with a character-centric tale of camaraderie and survival. Borrowing elements from classics such as The Thing and Jaws, Carnahan manages to create an engrossing and crowd-pleasing old school thriller. Right from the get go, with Ottway's (Neeson) opening monologue leading towards the epic plane crash (which I must say is an incredibly executed sequence that left the entire audience collectively whispering, "Damn..."), you already get the feeling you're in for something different from the typical mainstream offerings.
The pacing is slow and meditative, so those expecting Liam Neeson punching wolves and slashing them with makeshift "Wolverine" claws made of broken bottles will be greatly disappointed. It is also quite bleak for the most part, although there are some hilarious banter between its sympathetic group of characters to lighten the mood.
The build-up of tension and fear is excellent. But while the wolves are legitimate threats and effective sources of jump scares, it gets to a point where it becomes repetitive and implausible, especially given the realistic feel Carnahan goes for. But apart from that, everything else is solid.
The film boasts some great character work and surprisingly strong acting by the ensemble led by Neeson, who takes on one of his best roles in years as the downhearted de facto leader of the band of survivors. Couple those with Masanobu Takayanagi's (Warrior) gorgeously breathtaking cinematography and Marc Streitenfeld's (Prometheus) amazing score, and you have a potential cult classic and one of the very best survival films out there.
If you're a fan of old school horror-thrillers and you appreciated what last year's Super 8 did, odds are you'll enjoy The Grey.
Joe Carnahan Says 'The Grey' Will Head Back To Theaters For An Oscar Qualifying Run In October
Reveals He Showed The Cast 'Deliverance' & 'Raging Bull' To Help Them Prepare For The Film
Oscar bait?
After Carnahan completed his cut of “The Grey” in 2011, strong buzz began building around Neeson’s performance, so much so that Carnahan considered scrambling to push out a short qualifying run before the end of the year.
“If we’d been able to launch in Toronto, which was our initial plan, but we wound up six weeks behind because of effects,” Carnahan explains. “Combining that with the fact that Liam was doing ‘Taken 2’ and wouldn’t be available for all the events you have to go to. It’s like an election. You’re running for office. So since we didn’t have those things set, we said let’s just release it when it’s all ready. And let’s ignore the fact that everybody says January’s a dumping ground. They make too many movies these days for any one month to be a dumping ground. Obviously ‘Taken’ was a January release for Liam that did quite well. Honestly, it’s nice to even be mentioned, the idea that people even think it’s awards-worthy. That’s flattering. Open Road has said flat out and sort of scrawled it in blood that they’re going to release the film in October 2012 for a qualifying run, which is great.”
I'm looking forward to seeing this myself, as Our Man From Ballymena has yet to make a duff film in my opinion (regardless of comments made about The Phantom Menace). Catching this opening weekend with my wife and friends. Looking forward to it a lot.
Here's a great review of the film from the Village Voice. While not necessarily saying it's an awesome movie or not, it's still a great review. Check it out:
Halfway through last year's rough-and-tumble thriller Unknown, assassins come calling for a man who's suffering from amnesia (Liam Neeson). All of a sudden, he hammers down on his pursuer with a lead pipe, digs a thumb into an eye socket, and punches through targets like a heavyweight. He won't learn his identity for a while longer, but from that point forward, we suspect—and the actor's gathering physical confidence confirms—that he's not the well-mannered scientist he claims to be.
Liam Neeson is what greater generations would have called "strapping." A 6'4" Irishman with long arms, meaty hands, and a colossal head, it's impossible to look past him. It's not that the camera loves him, exactly. It's more that the camera has no choice but to fix on him, angling and widening to accommodate his stature and anticipate his movement. You want to watch him lift things, swing lead pipes, fell lesser men. It's apt that he trained as a boxer; that the aquiline in his fantastically long nose was shaped by a fist. Of course there's that voice—commanding, lyrical, limn of brogue—but first, there's the body.
Neeson's imposing figure seemed to hold him back from being a true leading man until Steven Spielberg saw the humanity in the hulk and knighted him, at age 41, as Oskar Schindler. For those of us who first came to know Neeson from that shattering performance, which earned him an Oscar nomination and the indignity of losing to Tom Hanks, his ensuing career has been largely confounding. Outside of a few biopics tailor-made for his stature and Celtic authenticity (Rob Roy, Michael Collins) and iconographic supporting work—he has played a Jedi (Star Wars: Episode I), a ninja (Batman Begins), God (The Chronicles of Narnia), and Zeus (Clash of the Titans)—Neeson has never lived up to what his Schindler led us to expect. (See: The Haunting, Gun Shy.) And lately, starting with surprise hit Taken (2009) through The Grey (opening Friday), he has become a staple of B-movie barnstormers, calling to mind the slumming, late-career spirals of Richard Burton and Gregory Peck. Why is a Shakespearean actor, a product of the venerable Abbey Theatre in Dublin, neck-breaking Bosnian terrorists and wrestling with wolves for a living?
The truth is that he has finally arrived. What made Neeson hard to cast when he was younger and likely kept him from the top ranks of the A-list during his prime—the inarguable fact of his atypical body—is what's allowing him to stay busy as he nears 60. Although good-looking, he has never been a pretty face—he's got a heavy's cranium, a character actor's face-engulfing grin, and those tiny smiling eyes. Diminished beauty won't define him the way it did Redford, the way it will Clooney. Just go online and watch the trailer for The Grey: See how that instantly recognizable body, angled forward in strength and vulnerability, delivering blows as convincingly as it receives them, holds the screen. While other A-listers in his age bracket literally lose the faces that made them famous and transition to supporting parts and peripheral patriarchs (payback's a *****, Hanks), and as former musclemen go to sag (check out The Expendables), Neeson has become a bona fide action star without changing how he goes about his business. He leads with that magnificent body, then backs it up with the rest.
In the long view of a 30-year career in film, alpha action men are the rule on Neeson's résumé, not the exception. Although perhaps saddled with the cred of stage acting, Neeson is more likely to crack a skull or swing a sword than fight for independence or save a Jew. (That it hasn't felt that way is a testament to how well he complicates the part.) Even fully armored, Neeson moves like Neeson, and he performed bloody ironwork in both John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) and Peter Yates's Krull (1983). He then kept fighting, with both steel and light sabers, in Stars Wars I, Batman Begins, Gangs of New York, and especially Rob Roy, in which he channels colonized Scotland's anger into a blow that slices Tim Roth's Archibald Cunningham in two. Before Spielberg, his most notable role was as a comic-book vigilante (Darkman), and even as Michael Collins, his best non-Schindler's film work, his charisma stems from a fierce physicality. In The Grey, team player Neeson bides his time with an ensemble of character actors until he's finally left alone, without hope of discovery, in the Alaskan wilderness. Suddenly, the film turns from endurance test to riveting one-man show. He cowers and then stiffens, calls on God only to reject him, registers that he's ****ed only to come alive in motion, head down and arms pumping. The films might not be worthy, but Neeson always moves the picture.
It's interesting to revisit Schindler's List in this context, to see what Spielberg makes of such rich physical material. And indeed, Neeson's performance is revelatory in its physical authority—it seems like he could harbor all 1,100 survivors in his suit jacket—and in the subtle softening of his face and cadence. Yet it competes with Spielberg's efforts to monumentalize a body built to move. Shot in profile, framed against infinite blackness, he's like a Rodin. You can't help but marvel at that amazing head. I wonder if this is the Neeson most of us still imagine, a static movie star carved in black and white, an actor subsequently miscast and rendered inert in prestige films like Nell and Before and After. Perhaps it took him growing older—the thinning of his hair, the extra lurch in his stride—as well as the undeniable tragedy of his personal life (his wife, actress Natasha Richardson, died suddenly in 2009) to make us appreciate Liam Neeson in full. "I know how old I am and that I'm just a shoulder injury from losing roles like the one in Taken," he admitted to Esquire last year. All the more reason to enjoy the action while it lasts.
Very good movie which adds another notch to Neesons belt. With Battleship coming up should be a good year for him. Also did anyone else feel that this role was more personal for him with the death of his wife?
The campfire scenes went on for a little longer than they needed to, but overall, this was a great flick. Loved Liam Neeson's performance, and the ending was fantastic.
However, I think the film will probably get some bad word of mouth, since it's almost nothing like the trailer. Got a lot of boos and groans in my theater when it ended.
I give it a 4/5
Last edited by MisterPilgrim; 01-28-2012 at 06:04 AM.
The campfire scenes went on for a little longer than they needed to, but overall, this was a great flick. Loved Liam Neeson's performance, and the ending was fantastic.
However, I think the film will probably get some bad word of mouth, since the film is almost nothing like the trailer. Got a lot of boos and groans in my theater when it ended.
I give it a 4/5
Yeah, same here. People don't like those kinds of endings.
If they would have trimmed out 5-10 minutes & tweaked the ending a bit (see my original post above), this would be a really fantastic movie. It still was great though but it had potential with a few simple fixes to be much, much better.
I understand the ending, but I really wish we would have got to see more without saying too much.
[Show spoiler]It still could've ended with the poem being read AFTER the fight with his character next to the wolf and he says it and you don't know if he's going to live or die and then fade to black...that'd be awesome. I just wanted a final battle with him and the wolf so bad but I could just tell it wasn't going to happen. A violent, crazy fight at the end with a couple minutes trimmed around the camp..........incredible movie
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
The Grey Review Thread (Spoilers)
Hybrid Mode
