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638 reviews in total

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637 out of 960 people found the following review useful:
This is the dumbest wildlife movie ever, 2 March 2012

Author: wwilliams-307-76490 from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

As I guy who has spent a lot of time in Canada's wilderness these past 40 years, most of it in wolf country, the wolf behaviour depicted in this movie is ridiculous.

It begins with a scene in which a lone timber wolf charges three grown men standing near a truck. No wolf would ever behave like this. Despite all the time I've spent in areas with large wolf populations (with lots of tracks around), I've only ever caught fleeting glimpses of three or four of them,and that's when I was by myself, unarmed and completely vulnerable.

The idea that a pack of wolves would attempt to prey on a group of men is also ridiculous. There has been only one documented predatory wolf attack in North America in the past 200 years, and that involved a large pack and a solitary hiker in Saskatchewan a few years ago.

As any wolf biologist would tell you, you can walk up to a pack of wolves feeding on a fresh kill, completely unarmed, and the wolves will scatter. They'd stay and fight a grizzly, but one whiff/sight of human and they'd quickly turn and run.

The size of the wolves in this movie is another misrepresentation. The biggest timber wolf on record, when they emptied 20 pounds of meat from his stomach, was a male weighing 120 pounds. The average male is around 90 pounds. A lone wolf would be a very poor match for a 200 pound man armed with a knife.

The plot revolved around the wolf's protection of their den. Stupid. Wolves only den when the alpha female gives birth in the spring. And they sure wouldn't be driving the men toward the den in that situation - quite the opposite. Nor do they scatter the bones of all their kills around the den - that would only draw other predators, like grizzlies. Instead, the adults eat at site of the kill and regurgitate the meat for the pups when they get back to the den.

Finally, our so-called wolf expert devised all sorts of idiotic defences against the wolves, but ignored the one thing any group of true woodsmen would do in a similar situation (i.e. facing wolves on crack). That's use their knives to make spears. A group of men with spears would be impregnable to a pack of wolves, no matter how large, as no predator likes to risk injury.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. If you're going to spend millions on a movie, wouldn't it make sense to spend $10 on a good wolf book first?

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352 out of 534 people found the following review useful:
Horrible- Unrealistic, 31 January 2012

Author: atp118 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I am in utter SHOCK of the 9 and 10 ratings for this movie. I just saw this movie and thought it was HORRIBLE. I use to have so much respect for the ratings system on this website This is a complete outrage that people are giving this a 10 star. Warning- do not read if you haven't seen the film and wish not to hear major spoilers. However, continue reading if you want to save $10. Im going to start by saying, the trailer for this film totally throws the viewer off and doesn't follow up with what is promised. For all of the people that thought this was a 9 or 10, i encourage you to write me back and i challenge any of you to explain yourselves. The following is my list of events that made this movie as bad as it is.

1) The movie is so unrealistic its funny. 7 people survive a plane crash in the middle of Alaska. They sleep outside for days- with little 2 foot fires they made. ARE You SERIOUS you would be dead or frozen within hours . The so called killer wolves. I've seen my fair share of animal shows- wolves kill things to eat them. Not just to kill something. All of the people killed in the movie are killed and never eaten. Here is the big one- Liam is still alive after being outside in ALASKA for three days, Blizzard like conditions, probably negative temps, a massive wolf bite to the knee and guess what he does on the third day. He jumps into an Alaskan river for 3 minutes. And walks away completely fine. After being in the Alaskan wilderness for days jumping into water that is 32 digress would give you instant hypothermia- and you would be dead in about 30 minutes.

2) THe premise of the story is so bad and makes no sense. In the start of the movie we are believing that Neesen is some master wolf killer and survival expert. Guess what this expert wolf killer manages to do. He doesn't kill one frigging wolf the entire time they are out there. He convinces the remaining survivors to flee into the woods or they will die. Guess what happens- EVERYONE DIES. He didn't protect anyone let alone use any expert survival knowledge at all. He lit all the fires with the oil and matches. For all these people who say this is a "Survival Movie at its Best" in there reviews. Are you serious. what does he do throughout the movie that you think he is a survival expert.

3) I found myself laughing out loud in the theater at some of the scenes. - Because they were so out of control and unrealistic. 1) I found it funny that the guys were gathered around a fire laughing and joking when 20 minutes earlier someone just got killed by a WOLF. 2) The guys decide there best way of survival is to get down to a river they can hear. SO they decide to jump of a CLIFF with some rope/bed sheets they miraculously found in ten seconds. Are you kidding Me. Oh yeah the last guy falls to the ground and is killed by 3 wolves waiting for him down there. Did the wolves transport down the 100 foot cliff. Some of the wolf scenes were LOL funny. They would be chasing the people and Liam would say "RUN" the survivors would start running in 3 feet of snow going 1 mile an hour but the wolfs never could keep up.

Movie was horrible

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223 out of 329 people found the following review useful:
Totally unrealistic, 3 February 2012

Author: gstan from Oregon, USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Okay, I realize Hollywood is Hollywood and it is normal for them to bend reality a little for the sake of their art. And I can suspend belief for a few hours when necessary ... after all a science fiction movie is fiction and a fairy tale is just that. But this film didn't "bend" reality so much as break it, throw it in the mud, then trample all over it and toss it in the trash.

I could fill at least one tightly spaced page with all the things that defy reason in this film but I'll try to limit myself to just a few. I have been to Alaska in the winter. I know people that have worked the oil fields. I know that in Alaska or Northern Canada you don't wander around in near white-out conditions, with the temps below zero, without COMPLETELY covering EVERY part of your body. You don't tramp around with your ears, nose, chin, etc. unprotected, and your coat only partially zipped up, as the survivors did when they left the plane.

The Neeson character is shown at the beginning of the film using a high-power rifle, which he carries in a distinctive case. After the plane crash he finds his rifle case and his broken rifle, but he also finds shot gun shells in the case. ???? He didn't even have a shot gun; why would he carry shot gun shells? We later find that they are a contrivance -- tossed in only to foist an completely unrealistic plot element on us. (I guarantee that using those shells the way the movie tried to would result in MAYBE 1 in 100 of them firing. I can explain why if you can't figure it out yourself) Again, the weather. After spending a night in a blizzard ... a night in which their fire goes out (at least there is no fire in the morning scene), at least two of the characters are shown waking up bare-headed, their coats partially unfastened and no sign of blankets but, miraculously, they are bright-eyed,almost chipper and ready to go after their hours long ordeal in sub-zero weather.

The wolves. What can you say about the wolves except that real wolves act NOTHING like those depicted in this movie. No real, wild wolf would go anywhere near fire the way these mutts do. Real wolves don't hunt humans over miles and miles of territory like the movies unless MAYBE ... PERHAPS ... they are near starved and ready to eat anything. Real wolves don't normally kill unless it's for food. And how did those wolves get down that massive cliff anyway? And how did they know in advance where the humans were going? They must have known since they were there waiting for them. If you want to know what real wolves act like, read Farley Mowat.

I didn't have time to try and enjoy this movie as art because every few moments My reason was assaulted with totally contrived, totally unrealistic plot elements. I kept finding myself shaking my head and telling myself, "That's not remotely close to reality." As I said, I could fill many lines with similar discrepancies. I wouldn't be so critical if this movie was marketed as a survival FANTASY, but it's not. It's presented as a straight forward survival movie with some attempts at mysticism and philosophy ad nauseum thrown in. Don't waste your time.

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234 out of 375 people found the following review useful:
Simply Awful, 31 January 2012

Author: candus_p from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. I just made no sense whatsoever! (Possible spoilers!) Why would they leave the plane, which I'm sure had a GPS locater and instead go run into the wilderness where they have little possibility of ever being found? Why would they not use the parts of the plane to build a barrier and ring of fire around themselves? Why did they not scavenge the plane for any and everything useful (i.e., extra clothes, food, those mini-liquor bottles to fuel a fire, sharp pieces of broken metal to fight the wolves, etc.)? What happened to those bullet sticks they all once had? Why would you trudge through knee-deep snow, knowing that wolves were around without at least a big stick? And once you did find a river, why would you not try to construct some sort of raft, being that most rivers flow to some sort of civilization? And how could you just leave someone alone to die? And really? That river wasn't that deep--he couldn't have figured out that his foot was stuck? And then afterward, main character who just came out of the freezing river, is running around without a jacket and gloves and is not yet dead of hypothermia? Just seemed to me to be about perfect candidates for the Darwin awards.

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169 out of 264 people found the following review useful:
Worst Movie in the last year (maybe more years), 8 February 2012

Author: benzir13 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I would start from the positive. Excellent playing by Liam Neeson. Great photography and great editing. Some parts are scary as intended. That's the reason I gave it two stars and not one.

Now to the plot. That's the most implausible plot I have seen in my recent memory. Starting from their decision to leave the crash site with the lame excuse that nobody will find them there. This is really stupid. They found the plane of JFK Junior in the bottom of the sea within 24 hours of the crash. His airplane had less sophisticated equipment and for sure they had a transponder that was constantly in radio contact especially in a place like Alaska.

Then the wolves' behavior. It looks very childish. It looks totally wrong from my low level knowledge of pack animal behavior. I am not going to give readers much more spoilers, but one of the decisions of jumping off a cliff to tie a flimsy rope to a tree is totally ridiculous. There was no point in doing that since they could have continued to walk along it until the cliff is more manageable and then there is the impossibility of a normal human being actually doing that. Maybe I don't get this and this genre is like those impossible mission impossible where the acrobatics is the essence here. Sorry. The IMDb scoring normally correlates with my taste. Not this time.

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143 out of 213 people found the following review useful:
Once more into the fray, 3 April 2012

Author: Alan Wake

This is my first review ever, so please pardon me.

I won't talk about the plot in order not to spoil it but i'll just say it's not just another chick-flick/action movie nor a documentary one It's a man vs nature kind of movies like you've never seen before.

I saw the movie, blew my mind ,then-as usual- I came to read some reviews about it on here .Then i saw many "hated it" reviews. So i decided to say something about it

I think many people hated it or didn't even see it because they thought it's another Taken/Unknown Liam Neeson's "action". Hence, the movie got the wrong audience and the low ratings. Yes it has it's flaws, but if you can see what this movie is you will definitely overlook it. But the thing is, not everyone can, not the ordinary audience. You would know what i mean if you already saw it.

It's kind of funny how people dislike this movie because of the unrealistic events while they enjoy movies like mission impossible or Sherlock Holmes moreover ,they praise them. are those realistic ? Well, no. are they bad movies ? actually not at all for that type of movies. So my point is that's not a reason for disliking a movie and as i said before it's a movie not a documentary one.

My advice ,if you appreciate extraordinary movies and sick of the way the they are heading nowadays, Just ignore the Critics and see it and have a different experience.

P.S. I chose Sherlock Holmes and Mission Impossible as they were released at nearly the same time as The Grey was and they got higher ratings

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174 out of 279 people found the following review useful:
Existential allegory, 11 March 2012

Author: lhhung_himself from United States

This is a really depressing and disturbing film - almost certainly a bust at the box office but "The Grey" is really really good - an existentialist parable - in wolves clothing.

Life is nasty - it is a struggle without meaning except for the struggle itself and the nobility in having done that well regardless of the end result. That's what the film was about - not an action picture - not a scientifically accurate portrayal of wolves but an allegory - a metaphor about the existential view of life.

The circling and relentless wolves - the beautiful yet cold and uncaring Siberian landscape - the different attitudes of the participants to the pointless struggle yet heroic effort which no one will ever know about - succinct, powerful and poignant.

One of the few films that will be remembered in future decades in what has been a especially weak year. "The Grey" is not for the faint of heart or those looking for cheap thrills - but it is an unusually brave and beautiful exposition of an unpopular and depressing philosophical view of life...

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250 out of 436 people found the following review useful:
Neeson and Carnahan go above and beyond the survival thriller norms, 27 January 2012

Author: Movie_Muse_Reviews from IL, USA

Liam Neeson the gritty action hero. How unbelievable that at nearly 60 years old, an actor can redefine his career and become more bankable. Neeson has somehow re-channeled the seriousness he brought to dramatic roles into creating utterly convincing heroes in decent (at best) thrillers.

But that's not "The Grey." "The Grey" earns marks far above decent, and Neeson's performance makes it better. I know, the calendar clearly reads January, but that's a matter of maximizing box-office potential in this case. Writer/director Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team") has turned a new leaf in this harrowing wilderness survival thriller, a film as dedicated to exploring the true extent of the human will to live as much as shocking its audience with menacing wolf attacks.

Neeson leads the pack in all manner of ways. Paid to protect oil workers from nature's dangers (especially wolves), Neeson's character Ottway turns out to be a group of drillers' best chance for survival when their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness near a wolf den. He's far from a boy scout, however, and he's emotionally wounded by the past as evidenced by visions of his wife.

Most of the early indicators in the film give you the sense that Neeson will do his usual solemn-faced hero routine that he executes to perfection, but the way the film unfolds (not in terms of plot, but in terms of the quality of the storytelling) asks him to go beyond that. He definitely responds.

When looked at in its most fundamental form, "The Grey" could be considered just another film in which a group of imperiled people die one at a time en route to finding safety. Carnahan, however, slows down that pace so that we can absorb the extent of the danger and imagine ourselves in it. When death does occur, it's visually striking, jaw-dropping and/or thought-provoking as compared to standard efforts at the genre that involve only jump-scare deaths or death by character stupidity.

Only one character, Diaz (Frank Grillo) gets a stereotype as the stubborn self-centered jerk who disagrees with Ottway on purpose. Most movies would've killed him off before he got too annoying, but Carnahan and co-writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (who wrote the short story the film's based on), have more interesting plans in store for him.

It's also not just a film about people being hunted by wolves in the wilderness. There's no bloody man vs. wolf climactic battle, unlike what the trailers would have you believe, so film fans prone to take misleading marketing out on the film itself, be prepared. "The Grey" is much more of a suspenseful drama with high-adrenaline scenes lurking around every corner.

As such, the visual style of "The Grey" asks for something different from Carnahan than the over-the-top high-flying nature of his previous two films, "The A-Team" and "Smokin' Aces." The overall tone is gritty and naturalistic, so snow-caked beards without the blistering frostbite makeup.

The action is also more frenetic and gripping. Rather than shooting the action scenes in a traditional sense, he wants the viewer to feel as if they are experiencing them along with the characters. If a character falls from a tree top and hits 20 branches on the way down, that's exactly what the camera's doing. This maximizes the intensity of every major sequence. As for the wolves, they're horrifying, yet never painted as the bad guys. They're just part of nature.

When it comes to issues of faith and the will to survive, that's when "The Grey" really jumps up and above the bar for its genre. The story is told in such a way that when people die, it's not for our entertainment, but to highlight the unpredictable nature of ... nature, and life and death. As Ottway wrestles with these same issues, its Neeson's performance that makes it hit home.

"The Grey" gives its audience the rare gift of genre-film entertainment with some serious food for thought and an ample dose of emotion. Carnahan's choices on how to tell the story, along with an ending not typical of genre films, only make it all the stronger. Both he and Neeson display the true nature of their strengths. Hopefully we've seen only the beginning of Carnahan's potential, and that nature is kind enough to Neeson to let him continue challenging the norm for the standard heroic performance.

~Steven C

Thanks for reading! Check out my site moviemusereviews.com

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150 out of 240 people found the following review useful:
The Grey, so full of anomalies, 29 January 2012

Author: petralyn from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I had to laugh at several scenes. Finally, while the credits were rolling, it was all i could do to not let out a wolf yell. A plane loses power and everyone's breath is visible but no one is concerned. The plane is going down and the flight attendant is still walking the isle? After the crash, is a clearly snow covered, desolate area there are several survivors. All of a sudden the first wolf scene has trees magically appearing in the barren landscape. Next one of the most outlandish scenes has the few remaining fashion a rope from whatever then ask a volunteer to jump 30' from a cliff, across a river, and land in trees without injury. These guys are not Rambo, and no way can one jump from this cliff and make it to the other side, in a tree.

Then there is the scene in the river where Liam is trying to rescue a drowning victim. There is no way one can survive the frigid river then walk out, lay down and then get up again without sever hypothermia.

And, last but not least, Liam stumbles upon the wolf den. My question is: are these new wolves who've changed color or did the pack following them manage to jump of a cliff, swim across the river and beat Liam to their den?

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164 out of 272 people found the following review useful:
Some truth, 24 March 2012

Author: keithan-rogers from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I had to create an account to comment on the top few reviews about this movie. The people who wrote them are not very informed on what they speak.

Everyone says the movie is unrealistic. People surviving plane crashes: Really happens; Sleeping outside in the cold: Really happens, in fact I have been to several winter survival schools, we do it all the time, it happens without fire too; Wolves: if you are threatening a wolf it will kill you. "Animal shows" are a horrible source of information. It is downright ironic you quote animal shows as your source to discredit a movie; Doubt anyone has been to Alaska, because you can survive outside much longer than 3 days. Not to mention all of the people who were there had been working many years and had all their luggage. "probably sub zero" is idiotic. It was MAYBE close to zero in real life. Regardless, not that cold. Then you say he would be dead in 30 minutes after jumping into the river. Don't know if you looked at your watch but it wasn't 30 minutes until he died. He also stripped clothing off between those scenes, which is what you would need to do to survive.

Neeson didn't seem like a survival expert to me, wolf-killer sure. His rifle broke in half, and he knew more about surviving than anyone. Example, they would never have been found in reality, in a situation like that escape is your only option and you are a fool if you think otherwise. RULE 1 in survival is USE WHAT YOU HAVE. Why the hell would you make your life harder trying to start fires with a homemade bow when you have airplane fuel and lighters with you? Are you kidding me?

Hilarious that they were laughing around a fire? You lose hope and you die. Humor is the easiest way to promote unity and instill hope. Miraculously found sheets? It looked like shirts to me, and they all were carrying full packs of salvaged things from the plane. If you knew an ounce about survival you'd know rope is one of the most useful tools and could be made with almost anything. Wolves travel much faster than humans.

You people giving negative reviews need to give good reasons, like the acting sucked. It was a movie, and movies are made a certain way, to make money. Shrek is much more unrealistic but I doubt you are giving that negative reviews huh.

All the BS aside from reading the first few reviews, the movie was very well done. Liam Neeson is as badass as always, the realism is there for the most part. The one thing I noticed is night is not that long in Alaska. Several hours at most where they were. I would recommend it to anyone.

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