Tuesday 5 February 2013

The Grey - a review

Before I begin I want to say two things:

Thing 1) I promise on a whole stack of George Romero dvd's that I will never (ever) put spoilers in a review without a MASSIVE warning at the beginning. It's just rude to do otherwise, and I'm a polite young lady (honest guv'nor). Last year I read a review of Cabin in the Woods which, in it's very first line described the very final scene. Rude. Anyway, I won't be doing that, so no need to fear.

Thing 2) Why am I reviewing The Grey in a blog that's all about death? I mean, it has lots of people dying in it, but it's not really about death, and it's a thriller rather than a horror, so I fell the vague need to justify myself. Well, the simple answer is that I said I was going to. I was watching it while writing my last blog post and I'm a woman of my word.

So... the review...

Over all I would say that I enjoyed The Grey. It's beautifully shot, Liam Neeson was great, and the effects were amazing. Then again, Greg Nicotero, King of the Zombies, was in charge of the effects so that shouldn't be all that surprising. I especially thought the wolves were good. Animatronics has certainly come a long way since those Narnia series they had on the BBC when I was a kid. The wolves looked mean, like monsters.

As I've mentioned, Liam Neeson was great, but then when isn't he? Okay, in The A Team, but that was just a bad film, it wasn't his fault. He gave gravitas and depth to a character that could have been really shallow. It's almost like he remembered that he played Oskar Schindler and is a brilliant actor. I mean, this film is no Schindler's List, but it's much closer to that than many of his recent movie offerings.

And herein lies my problem with The Grey. I started watching this film expecting it to be Taken with wolves. I thought it was going to be Liam Neeson kicking arse in a snowy wood.

It's not.

It's beautifully filmed, it's about survival, mental as well as physical, and it's about the internal life of a man that you really don't know much about until the very end, which, as in Thing 1, I'm not going to ruin for you.

So please do watch this film, but don't watch it expecting action and silliness, like I did. Watch it expecting action, tension, emotion and heart... and maybe have a hankie nearby.
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