In preparation for my month-long horror fest movie review next month, I thought I better get in the habit of blogging more and actually reviewing some movies. Luckily, Netflix served up a big heaping dish of something I wanted to watch for a while, in the form of "The Grey" starring Liam Neeson, now available on Netflix.
I'm not really sure how old Liam is at this point in his life, but it seems he's "taken" (geddit, geddit?) on new life in his acting career in the form of an action hero. Unlike the likes of sylvester stallone or arnold schwarzenegger, Liam is the type of action hero who is, shall we say, more mentally prepared for life's little hurdles than the average man, but physically looks just like the rest of us. For those of us watching his films, unlike being buffed up like your average commando, which most viewers can't really manage, Mr. Neeson makes you feel like you could survive the action in his movies just by thinking like he does.
Of course... as the wise men know, changing the way you think is a lot harder than changing the way you look.
"The Grey starts out pretty bleak in setting. Alaskan wilderness. Oil drilling/processing rig, I should think. We meet the main character right off, and his job is obvious. He's been hired by the oil company to protect the riggers from wolves. Now I know it's already a stretch to go that far, I mean, for an oil company to spend money on an actual hunter to protect their workers just seems silly to start with, since I'd think they'd just put up a big fence around the compound and leave it at that, but the acting in this film is so good that that did not even occur to me until just now. In any case, our main protagonist, in the form of Liam Neeson, is having a rough time getting over the death of his wife. You can pretty much figure that out in the first two minutes. But in any case, and they never really tell you why, Liam boards a plane back to civilization. Maybe he's decided to give living with people another try? Who knows. They never say. And then... the plane ices over and goes down in the wilderness.
There's a funny sort of brain teaser joke my sister asked my mom a few days ago. She couldn't figure it out. It went: "A plane crashes between the borders of this country, and that country. According to international law, where do they bury the survivors?" No, don't bother going to Google and looking up international law on plane crashes. All you really have to do to figure out the answer is know how to listen. A skill my mother hasn't managed to master yet. She probably won't ever try. In any case, you don't bury the survivors, unless you are trying to cover something up. lol
To be honest the beginning of this movie was almost as depressing as the Jesse Stone movies with Tom Selleck. Check those out only if you have the positive attitude of a Pollyanna with an infinite supply of cocaine, because watching a few of those in a row will drive you to suicide. Not because the movies are bad, because they aren't. They are made for TV, so they aren't exactly great, but the mood is just the somber "i'll barely make it through winter" attitude of the people of the far northeast, and of course, the colder northern regions. Talk about seasonally affected depression! Mr. Selleck does a great impression of a man barely managing not to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
Which, of course, means he's a good actor, and isn't that really what the movies are all about? I saw a review on netflix by someone who tore apart the way the wolves acted in this movie, and the poor special effects they used to portray them. Apparently, they made him laugh. I'm not sure what he expected? I mean, it's not like the wolf packs are hiring themselves out to film crews in the hopes of eating whole casts of movies. They have to fake it somehow. Suspension of disbelief wasn't even a problem for this movie, at least not for me. Sure the wolves weren't real. I mean, let's be serious here. You get a bunch of real wolves and real people, take them into the real alaskan or canadian wilderness, put them in real life or death situations in the middle of the real woods, and you're really going to lose some damn fine actors. lol
The acting is what makes the film. The writing makes the book, the dialog makes the screenplay, but the acting is what makes the movie. I don't care if you are in "Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes" or not, if you are acting like the tomatoes are lethal, and you are a good enough actor to get that feeling across to the audience, the movie is going to be well received. I only mention that movie in particular because I remember seeing George Clooney in it years ago and he stops in mid scene and looks at the camera as if to say "Yep, the stagehands just rolled a bunch of tomatoes past my feet." Totally destroyed the rest of the movie for me. I stopped watching it right then and there. I'm not going to say I was on the edge of my seat in suspense over that one, but if the actors can't even try to take it seriously, then neither is your audience. The Hammer films of the late 60's are an ideal example of this. I mean, you give Christopher Lee a pair of plastic fangs and some fake blood, give Peter Cushing a wooden stake and a cross, and you've got two hours of entertaining film. You don't need great special effects. You just need good actors.
"The Grey" had excellent actors, was well written, was chock full of action, and pretty much left me slightly stirred, unlike a martini for Mr Bond. Seriously, they should get Liam Neeson to play James Bond. He'd be a thousand times better than Daniel Craig. Of course, they probably can't afford him now that the bond movies have gone into the toilet. I can't think of one part of "The Grey" that was slow except the first couple minutes. It's one of those movies where you think "Oh, this is going to be one of those long mental movies where you have to think about what's going on." And it is that kind of movie. You do think. You think JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME because that's what happens. It's not a movie about thinking. You get glimpses into the thoughts of the characters in this movie. They don't last long. Usually because that person dies while in mid-thought. lol Al the thinking goes on in the mind of the audience. You wonder "What the fuck would I do if I was in that situation? How long would I last?" In my case, I probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to be cast as an extra in the film. I'd have been like "Fuck this guys. It's too damn cold out here. I'm going home, keep the money." lol
Definitely one to watch again. I'm sure it'll survive the rewatchability test. My deceased father used to love good action movies, and I swear this is the first one since his death 6 years ago that i thought "I'm sorry my dad didn't live long enough to see this movie. He would have loved it." And he would have. It's a great action movie, with great acting, decent enough special effects that I didn't laugh, and it certainly didn't give me enough time to critique the film while I was watching it. lol
Just a tip, you'll want to watch this one past the end of the credits. I'm not sure exactly what I saw at the end there, but it gave me hope for a sequel. lol
In other news, the exceedingly hot and dry summer here has come to an end. We dropped back into the normal temperature range two weeks ago, and I've been chilly ever since. I can already tell there's a hard winter coming. So, all I have to do is survive the next 8 months until the temps warm up again. Wheee! lol I am gearing up for horror movie month in October! Be sure to check back here every day for new horror movie reviews starting october first! I've been saving up all my horror movies in my netflix queue. It's 500 movies strong and bursting at the seams with new arrivals. With any luck I'll find 31 movies I've never seen before, but at the very least, I'll try to make them movies I haven't reviewed before, just to keep things interesting here. Sure, the rest of the year my blog sucks, but so what? It's good in october! lol
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