The Grey - Worst Movie I've seen in a Long time.

[Krantos]

So the wife and I were looking for a movie to watch, and we picked up The Grey.

Oh. My. God.

How did this get any acclaim at all? The performances were good.

And that was it.

Every thing else about the movie was so incredibly dumb, that we spent most of the movie laughing at the sheer stupidity of the thing.

Want a hot tip about who's the next to die? They're the ones last in line. Every. Time. Seriously watch the movie. As soon as a character becomes the last in the line of survivors, they're the next to go.

Then there's the factual inaccuracies. I'm not much of a gun person, but even I recognized that the ammunition for the main character's rifle were shotgun shells. Oh, and that's not nit-picking on a background detail, they actually use the shells are improvised weapons after his rifle breaks. Not that they'd have done much good in the rifle anyway.

And don't even get me started on the wolves. Bad puppets, bad CGI, and absolutely no consideration for the way wolves ACTUALLY act. At ALL. Or look.

For example, the wolves in this movie sent in an "outcast" to "test" the survivors.

I'm sorry but that's just dumb.

"Wolves are the only animals who'll kill for revenge."

Um. No.

The movie had no respect for the subject matter, and no respect for its audience's intelligence. I don't need 100% but I don't want a serious movie to be making laugh out loud at its absurdity.

What the movie was trying to do was good. It was SOOO Far from accomplishing that, I literally feel like I just wasted the last 2 hours of my life.

Don't watch this movie. Watch The Edge, a much better movie.

 

[smearyllama]

I think the shotgun shells were just something he found in the wreckage of the plane, and not supposed to be the ammunition for his rifle. I'm assuming any weapons on the plane were stored in one secure location, since they're generally not a thing that (even disassembled) you can just have as carry-on.

I don't think the movie was quite that bad, though. Kind of silly, yeah, but so are the old "Man vs. Nature" stories it's emulating, like Jack London's works and such. Liam Neeson did a great job as the main character, too. I agree that a better film could definitely have been made, but I found the experience fairly enjoyable, if a little disappointing.

 

[Rawberry101]

Please, just don't. Everything you brought up as evidence was nit-picking little details even though you said you weren't nit-picking. On top of that, some of these nit-picks aren't as wrong as you make them out to be. Of course the last person in line gets attacked. That's how hunters...well...hunt. Yeah the wolves looked bad, that's a budgetary issue, not really the fault of the film maker.

I'll give you this: 1) the wolves looked bad. 2)Real wolves may not actually act that way. 3)Shotgun shells don't go in rifles. Those things probably should have been corrected.

The real reason that people liked The Grey is not because of it's factual accuracy. It's because it had a well written, stark, scary, reflective, and surprisingly philosophical narrative. It could have been wolves, it could have been bears, it could have been disease. The movie was about men fighting a hopeless situation. The way the wolves acted did not make or break the real value of the movie.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

The thing that hurt me most is that I believed this would be more of a psychological thriller and not just a straight up thriller. The part in the beginning where Liam is laying next to his wife and then wakes up above snow was what got me interested in the movie. I wanted Liam's hallucinations to plague him throughout his journey and even f*** around with him for a bit. Instead, the big reveal becomes painfully obvious towards the end and I loose interest once the film has ended.

It's not as bad of a movie as many have claimed, it just could have been a lot better.

 

[DJ_DEnM]

Shouldn't this be in User Reviews? Not that it matters, seeing as this seems to be the summer of misplaced threads.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

"I'm not nitpicking!"

Proceeds to nitpick

Come on man, this is your idea of what makes a movie bad? I understand not liking the CGI wolves, that's a little more subjective, but the ammo complaint has got to be one of the pettiest gripes I've ever heard.

 

[Wayneguard]

Dude, let me let you in on a little secret here.

Spoiler

Liam Neeson.... tapes broken bottles n shit onto his fists... to engage a pack of wolves... in hand to hand combat...

look at him... LOOK AT HIM!!

In all seriousness, the movie was just plain entertaining. It was formulaic (if you've seen Sanctum, The Cave, or any other movie like that, then you've seen the Grey) but it was in a cool setting with an awesome lead. Idk, it just worked. And then there's bottlefists...

 

[almostgold]

.... I don't understand? People get mad at this movie because the wolves aren't realistic. So? Jaws wasn't a realistic depiction of sharks, did you really let that ruin that movie for you too?

If you're looking for realistic depictions of wildlife in Man vs. Wildlife stories, you will be dissapointed.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I was disappointed, but I wouldn't say it was outright crap. For some reason I thought it would be more cerebral than it was.
Saw it on a flight from Australia to Hong Kong so atleast it killed some time.

 

[antidonkey]

The ending is what pissed me off. I watched it wanting and waiting to see an epic punch up at the end...................and it didn't happen. How can you have liam neeson tape a knife and broken bottles to his hands and not show the damned fight? I'm still a bit bitter about it.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

The ending is what pissed me off. I watched it wanting and waiting to see an epic punch up at the end...................and it didn't happen. How can you have liam neeson tape a knife and broken bottles to his hands and not show the damned fight? I'm still a bit bitter about it.

I absolutely loved the ending. I thought it was a lot more tasteful than an "Epic punch up." Loved the whole film (both times I saw it,) but the ending, I thought, was especially well done.

Also, The Edge was a good film, but I'm reminded of that scene where Hopkins is running from the bear, the camera pans down and goes into an overhead shot, and then you can CLEARLY see that the man running from the bear is a stunt double. He's heavier, he's very clearly wearing a wig, and I think he even has a thick goatee. That scene cracked me up.

 

[2HF]

The ending is what pissed me off. I watched it wanting and waiting to see an epic punch up at the end...................and it didn't happen. How can you have liam neeson tape a knife and broken bottles to his hands and not show the damned fight? I'm still a bit bitter about it.

I had the same reaction. To me the major selling point from the trailers was Liam strapping up for a fight with a motherfucking wolf. I get that Liam can't come out of that spot alive what with being surrounded and all that and I get that the movie isn't about Liam fighting a wolf, but goddammit I wanted Liam to fight that motherfucking wolf. And I wanted to see it go down. I wanted him to win that one fight before getting shredded. I was sad faced when they cut to black.

 

[Vivi22]

Dude, let me let you in on a little secret here.

Spoiler

Liam Neeson.... tapes broken bottles n shit onto his fists... to engage a pack of wolves... in hand to hand combat...

look at him... LOOK AT HIM!!

In all seriousness, the movie was just plain entertaining. It was formulaic (if you've seen Sanctum, The Cave, or any other movie like that, then you've seen the Grey) but it was in a cool setting with an awesome lead. Idk, it just worked. And then there's bottlefists...

Have to agree with you. If someone went to see this movie expecting anything other than Liam Neeson being the complete badass that he is then they went for the wrong reasons. And given what I remember of the trailers when it came out, I can't imagine they left anyone with the impression that they should expect more than that.

 

[4RM3D]

Spoiler

Liam Neeson.... tapes broken bottles n shit onto his fists... to engage a pack of wolves... in hand to hand combat...

look at him... LOOK AT HIM!!

...And then the movie ends >_<

In all seriousness, the movie was just plain entertaining. It was formulaic (if you've seen Sanctum, The Cave, or any other movie like that, then you've seen the Grey) but it was in a cool setting with an awesome lead.

"Cool setting" - Mind the pun!

I want Sanctum and The Cave to have a baby. Going to be the best horror movie of the decade.

Sanctum had all the awesome locations and scenery and The Cave had the dark atmosphere and good acting (compared to Sanctum).

 

[Symion]

Really heavy on the nitpicking, there are flaws in the film but your main points are off.

1. The look of the wolves - Yes, the CGI was cheap and it takes you out of the film at points but for what they were able to accomplish with their budget it is still impressive.

2.The straggler going next isn't some bad screenplay left over, the guy who can't hack it lags behind. Just a fact. Its why military training punishes the group for the straggler's weakness: To ensure the group as a whole is strong.

3. At no point did Liam's character intimate that the box of shells was for his rifle.

4.The omega hunts on his own outside the bounds of the pack so while Liam's character is wrong to say the pack sent him it is not unreasonable that the omega sought to take a human as a means to regain face amongst the pack. (Note: During the death of the Omega there is a challenge on the Alpha so the pack's power structure is weak meaning that the Omega could've made that challenge if he took the Con)

5. At the end Liam's character is at the mouth of the den, this isn't a throwaway fact to be ignored. At all times during the movie the men are moving directly into the heart of the Den (ironic since the Con wanted nothing to do with the plan) As such the wolves become bolder and bolder which accounts for the uncharacteristic bahaviour.

6. The point about revenge is a throwaway line to enhance the audience's apprehensiveness about wolves. There are few wild animals with the cognizance to act on revenge and wolves are among them.

 

[Angelblaze]

Alright where to begin...
Well first off no one really watches an action movie for real true realism now a days. The Grey isn't so much 'realistic' as much as 'it makes you feel.'
The Grey was meant to make you feel.

 

[5ilver]

I love Liam Neeson and wolves and the whole survival/thriller genre of movies and I almost fell asleep half-way through this :/

 

[Stilkon]

The only thing I have against The Grey is that it was the most depressing thing I've ever experienced, even worse than Grendel. Still, it's a well-shot movie, and it's impossible to hate Liam Neeson.

 

[SAMURAJ]

Wow Krantos i don't even know where to start arguing with you!