The Grey (2012)

The Grey (2012) is a fantastic wilderness survival film from director Joe Carnahan about a group of oil workers whose flight home to Anchorage crash-lands in the godless, frozen Alaskan wilderness, where the survivors are forced to fend off a pack of blood-thirsty wolves. The media campaign for this film had me (and most others) believe that it would be a slick B-movie; full of action and destruction, where the power of testosterone would be enough to conquer nature itself (star Liam Neeson is seen in the trailer taping a knife to one hand and several broken bottles to the other, just before fighting a huge wolf off with his bare hands). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that The Grey was much, much more than that.

As it turns out, The Grey is an extremely dark and hopeless story – a rarity in Hollywood – from the opening shot to the closing credits, The Grey is a meditation on death. In this film, as in reality, death comes to everyone for different reasons – sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, but one thing is for sure – death comes to us all eventually. The important thing is what we live for before we die – and this is where The Grey really flourishes, as it also turns out to be a pretty fantastic ensemble character study – another rarity. Ottway (Liam Neeson) is undeniably the main character, but each one of his fellow survivors are carefully developed and given a unique sense of purpose and camaraderie in the film. The acting was wonderful all around and I really got the sense that every actor had a great understanding of their character, which made it difficult to let go each and every time a character bit the dust.

As for the horror elements, they are handled pretty admirably. There are a few jump-scares, which are usually considered to be the cheapest horror gimmick, but were used sparingly and effectively here. Most of all, once the wolves appear on screen for the first time, an overwhelming sense of suspense and dread looms thick in the atmosphere of the film for most of the running time, which I absolutely loved.

On the technical side of things, the wolves themselves were presented using a mix of trained animals, animatronic puppets, and CG to somewhat mixed results. These wolves happen to be bigger and meaner and scarier than any real animal could have been, so I understand why CG was necessary, and though it wasn’t the best animation I’ve seen, I actually thought the appearance of the wolves was very frightening. The cinematography, handled by Masanobu Takayanagi  was absolutely perfect. The Grey is one of the only winter films that actually made me feel cold just by looking at it. His cinematography was equally effective at enhancing the horror elements as well – what could be scarier than sitting by a campfire in the dark woods, and only being able to see the warm breath of dozens of killer wolves float above the horizon as they encircle you and your friends? Not much. The sound design was incredible too, with crunching ice and howling wolves surrounding the audience and building a wild, imposing atmosphere – this is a film that is really worth seeing in theaters. The score, composed by Ridley Scott regular Marc Streitenfeld, is used minimally, but does a wonderful job of accenting certain emotional scenes.

Overall, I loved The Grey, and feel that fans of similar dark ensemble thrillers such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) will feel the same. In fact, Ridley Scott served as a producer on The Grey, along with his brother Tony, and it may not be a coincidence that one character in the film wears a hat with the letters “WY” on it (could it be a reference to Weyland-Yutani, the evil mega-corporation from the Alien films?). All speculation aside, The Grey was an excellent film that managed to be uniquely dark, and yet tender, personal, terrifying, and touching all at once. Despite the fact that (without giving any spoilers away) the ending is a tad anti-climactic, I give The Grey a near-perfect 4.5/5.

The Golden Child (1986)

The Golden Child is far from a perfect film. In fact, it is at times awkward, confusing, and bizarre. Nonetheless, it happens to be a rather unique Eddie Murphy adventure comedy made in the era when he was content just playing an impossibly cool, cocky, smart-mouthed rendition of himself (think Beverly Hills Cop, but with Eastern mysticism and kung-fu) and that counts for something.

Eddie Murphy plays an LA private investigator who specializes in finding lost children and wisecracking. He is contacted by a mysterious, and of course sexy member of the apparently-existent Los Angeles Tibetan Mystic community named Kee (Charlotte Lewis). She insists an ancient scroll prophesied that Eddie Murphy would rescue the Golden Child, a young monk  who is destined to save humanity from itself, and who was recently kidnapped by a band of moronic cretins, subhumans, and the bad guy from Last Action Hero, who happens to be a powerful demon.

Eddie Murphy spends most of the film making fun of Kee’s beliefs, or propositioning her for sex. As for being “the Chosen One,” he is not terribly effective as a savior of children, mystical or otherwise. The Golden Child mostly saves himself after waiting days and days to be found by Eddie Murphy, and the only other child we see Eddie looking for is found – dead. As for heroics, Eddie’s butt is often saved by Kee’s superior acrobatics and martial arts (often while wearing no pants, or while being splashed with water and wearing white clothing). Still, despite his lack of empathy, general incompetence, and enormous ego, Kee falls madly in love with Eddie’s character in the end.

The villains are mostly on the ridiculous side, and despite seeming very capable, waste literally hundreds of opportunities to harm the Golden Child, and seem to just be waiting around for Eddie to come and smart-mouth them and save the day. The level of urgency was extremely low in this movie, even though we were made to believe the world as we know it was at risk the whole time, and yet the film manages to be extremely entertaining, mostly thanks to Eddie Murphy just being himself.

This movie has at least one iconic scene – Eddie must conquer a test of faith by crossing a bottomless pit while carrying a glass of water which he mustn’t spill a drop of (I wonder if Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was inspired by this at all). I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, but I feel like this scene of The Golden Child has been impressed on my memory since childhood, whether or not I could remember what movie it came from.

Overall, as a fan of adventure comedies, traditional 80’s special effects, and classic Eddie Murphy movies, I really enjoyed this movie despite its flaws. Overall, I’d give it a solid 3.5 out of 5.