Here's the issue with "The Grey"—either you buy into the idea that this movie is in fact more than just a poorly executed tale of wilderness survival, that it is actually an existential consideration of the human condition and the significance we must extract from our struggle to defeat the absurd obstacles life throws in our way.
I don't buy it.
Perhaps it's the choice of the villain in this film. Wolves already get a bad enough rap in our culture. Here they are cast as bloodthirsty predators who hunt humans for sport (but wait—maybe they're metaphors for humans the only species that hunts for sport nah, that doesn't work either). To confuse matters even more, some attacks that are filmed to look brutally deadly turn out to be anything but. And then there's the confusing matter of Liam Neeson's lost love. I don't begrudge a film its effective use of ambiguity, but when that ambiguity turns to obscurity and seems to unnecessarily complicate the plot and the protagonist's character development well, then I take issue.
"The Grey" has actually turned up on a few critics' end-of-year "Best of" lists, so I took a chance and watched it in spite of the panning it had received from so many other critics. I rarely regret my cinematic choices, but "The Grey" is one that I do wish I had opted against.
I don't buy it.
Perhaps it's the choice of the villain in this film. Wolves already get a bad enough rap in our culture. Here they are cast as bloodthirsty predators who hunt humans for sport (but wait—maybe they're metaphors for humans the only species that hunts for sport nah, that doesn't work either). To confuse matters even more, some attacks that are filmed to look brutally deadly turn out to be anything but. And then there's the confusing matter of Liam Neeson's lost love. I don't begrudge a film its effective use of ambiguity, but when that ambiguity turns to obscurity and seems to unnecessarily complicate the plot and the protagonist's character development well, then I take issue.
"The Grey" has actually turned up on a few critics' end-of-year "Best of" lists, so I took a chance and watched it in spite of the panning it had received from so many other critics. I rarely regret my cinematic choices, but "The Grey" is one that I do wish I had opted against.