Pacific Rim: Watch Rodan Instead

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I went into this movie with high hopes, fully knowing I was expecting a lot from a story about giant robots fighting giant monsters. With a name like Guillermo del Toro's attached to it, the man who created Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, there was a chance the material would be handled with an originality and depth largely considered atypical of the giant monster movie genre. I've been a fan of Godzilla since I was old enough to turn on a TV, so you can imagine my anticipation for a fresh take on a familiar idea.

Pacific Rim, in my opinion, is the worst movie del Toro has ever made. It's also the dumbest movie I've seen so far this summer. There was not a single moment, not a grain of the story or an element of any of the characters that doesn't appear somewhere else in recent pop culture. It's common to say that there are no new ideas, which may well be true, but I didn't think a titanically expensive major studio release with such a pedigree would be so thoroughly derivative. The giant robots are nothing more than a retread of Transformers; the monsters carry parasites on their bodies just like the monster from Cloverfield; there's a gag involving Ron Perlman's character taken from Deep Blue Sea; the creature designs are straight out of Avatar; and to add insult to injury, there's a line ostentatiously lifted from Star Wars.

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It gets better from there. All of the dialogue is either uninspired or wincingly bad. The stock characters live solely in two dimensions, plugged into the story to fulfill the minimum of narrative requirements. You have geeky, awkward scientists, a hero with a dark past to live down, a cocky young upstart with something to prove, an insecure young upstart with something to prove (and a dark past to live down), a grizzled veteran without much time left, and monster-fodder. They're unengaging, hollow, bland, and never once break the bonds of cliché. Their unrelenting shallowness makes them impossible to care about, a serious problem when it comes to generating any suspense or interest during the big monster battles.

Those battles are the primary set pieces, the main reason the movie exists, and rather than looking forward to them, I found myself dreading their arrival. I had the same problem here that I had with the Transformers movies; computer animation doesn't render depth of field very well, and with the added inconvenience of all but one fight taking place at night, in the rain, the action looks like nothing more than big, glowy CG blobs grappling with abstract geometric shapes. I had to strain my eyes to make out what was happening. Combine that with the thundering audio mix, and the effect is unpleasant at best, torturous at worst, and you get a headache both ways.

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So much in the film comes off as ridiculous that I have to wonder, did del Toro mean for it to be this silly? Is it supposed to be a goofy homage to monster movies of the past? If so, he goes about it the wrong way. What little campiness there is feels subdued and half-hearted, not nearly gonzo enough to support such a thin story. Over-the-top humor and satire would have been an interesting way to go—think Paul Verhoeven directing an uber-budget Big Man Japan—and would have been more appropriate for this kind of outrageous subject matter. But I think—I think—it's all meant to be taken unironically, making the end result that much more disappointing.

Giant monster movies don't have to be just for kids. The 2008 South Korean movie The Host is funny, suspenseful, unconventional and adult, worth seeing more than once. Apart from the ending, it might be one of the best monster movies ever made. 2010's Monsters, while it has its issues, is a unique and grown-up take on the genre. It's possible to do this kind of thing and do it smart. Guillermo del Toro, of all people, should have been able to give us something just as good. Instead, what we have is only slightly less bad than the recent output of Micheal Bay.

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Darth Vader In Middle Management, and Imperial Inefficiency

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One of the most interesting scenes from Star Wars, for me, is the part that takes place in that conference room on the Death Star, where a group of upper-level space navy officers and one nobleman (it's Lord Vader, not Captain Vader) have a sit down about the status of their new ultra-weapon. It stands out from every other scene in the movie because it's so solidly bureaucratic, giving the audience a window into the kind of functional, boring details that make up life on a fictional space station. The movie opens with a shoot-out, we see a weird bar full of creepy aliens, stellar dogfights and a lightsaber duel, but for about five minutes, thirty-odd minutes into the run time, we watch a board meeting.

Lucas demonstrated an even deeper commitment to sci-fi C-SPAN in The Phantom Menace, where the action—such as it is—grinds to a halt halfway through so the characters can discuss how things are going to go down in space Congress. Serious stuff is supposed to be happening, there's a rouge Sith Lord on the loose, and the violent occupation of a peaceful planet is in progress. But the important thing is to dramatize how senators lobby for votes, entirely through expository dialogue. The scene feels like it goes on forever, and was the point where I stopped the DVD the last time I watched Episode I and told myself, Never again. I probably won't keep that promise, but it'll be years before I make myself sit through that. It's maybe the worst scene in a pretty sloppy trio of prequels, and that's really saying something.

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The scene in the original Star Wars differs for a few key reasons. One, it's terse. It feels a lot tighter, a result of the fact that it's better written, leading me to believe that Lucas either didn't write it, or he was a much better writer as a young man than he was in his sixties. Maybe it's the editing; the documentary Empire of Dreams all but accuses Lucas of making a mediocre movie that had to be saved in the editing room. Whatever the cause, it comes off much better, no less so because it ends in harrowing violence.

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Many people have commented on the cause of that violence; who did that one admiral or commander or whatever think he was mouthing off to Vader that way? Was he nuts? You'd think he knew who he was talking to. Even if Vader doesn't technically outrank that guy (leading me to wonder exactly what Vader's role on the Death Star was—consultant? Snitch?), Vader's reputation alone should have shut his yap. Are we to believe word of his lethal powers hasn't gotten around the Empire? It must have to some extent, because he mockingly refers to Vader's “sorcerer's ways”. Had Vader never force-throttled an Imperial officer before? Or one of the enlisted men? I find that hard to believe. Sith Lords don't bother much with impulse control. Maybe that officer is just a cocky sonofabitch, and likes to push people and see how much he can get away with. If so, it was the wrong day to try that trick with Vader.

A few scenes earlier, aboard the blockade runner after Princess Leia is taken into custody, an Imperial officer essentially chastises Vader for potentially getting everybody in trouble with the Senate (how much authority can the Imperial Senate possibly have? It's a police state, for chrissakes). Vader placates him with hurried assurances that he'll handle the situation, and so we see the first instance of the Sith Lord having to deal with a disrespectful co-worker. That makes the incident in the conference room the second time in one day he's had to take shit from somebody who doesn't consider him a serious threat. Clearly that was one time too many, but I'm still a little perplexed.

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If everyone knows who Vader is, and has some idea of his role toward the end of the Clone Wars, you wouldn't think they'd want to get on his bad side. Also, they have to know what his relationship to the Emperor is. Unless that's all kept a secret, but what would be the point of that? Wouldn't it be a better use of Vader's talents to make sure everyone knows he's an efficient and enthusiastic killer, just to keep them all in line? I don't understand why else he's there. Maybe the Emperor couldn't think of anything else to do with him, and told him to go hang out on the Death Star for a while. Vader obviously has real authority—he appears to be in charge of the blockade runner's capture—but his duties don't look any different from those of the average mid-level officer. It seems a poor use of someone with so much inherent power.

That's how it goes sometimes, though. You have a resource at your disposal and don't know exactly what to do with it. Some of the expanded universe stuff implies that Vader was helping the Emperor hunt down and kill the last remaining Jedi; I read a pretty cool comic story once where he was doing that, having an awesome lightsaber and force fight with a refugee Jedi. Obi-wan Kenobi tells Luke that was how things went down, but years later Lucas undermines the backstory by having the clone troopers kill off most of the main Jedi. The final shot of Episode III shows the Emperor and Vader standing on the deck of a Star Destroyer supervising the construction of the Death Star; Vader goes from badass warrior to a contractor in just a few days, or however much time elapses between that silly scene in the operating room and a shot of two of the most iconic heavies in cinema history staring out a window.

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In Empire, things look much better for Vader. With Grand Moff Tarkin dead, Darth gets a promotion, and a brand new, super-humongous Star Destroyer to cruise the galaxy in. Now he can choke Imperial officers to death with impunity. The only person who can tell him any different is the Emperor, and that guy shocks people to death with his fingers. At first glance, it looks a bit like failing up, when you consider that Vader didn't manage to stop the Rebels from blowing up the Death Star. But remember, Grand Moff Tarkin was in charge of mounting an effective defense against the attack, which he stoutly refused to do apart from a few fighters and the laser cannons that were already lining the trench anyway. Vader was just doing his job. Besides, who else was the Emperor going to promote to second-in-command? Does anyone else in the original trilogy look qualified?

Still, it all seems kind of a mess, what with high-ranking officers being killed in front of the crew. That's a shitty work environment, and you'd think people living in a super high-tech sci-fi universe would have some idea of how ineffective it is to use death as a motivator. You just don't get the best work out of people that way. They have to love their job, love where they work, if you want really top-drawer workplace performance. It's one thing for a totalitarian dictatorship here on Earth to do that “Fail me and I'll kill you” stuff, but those space people ought to know better.

Going back to that scene in the conference room, you can see the problem is an endemic one. There's Vader, magically strangling a guy, and it takes Tarkin a minute to finally say, “Hey now, come on, knock it off you guys.” You call that discipline? The Empire's unlikely defeat at the hands of talking koala bears with sticks now makes a lot more sense. This is what happens when an organization is headed by a cranky old wizard who doesn't get out much, and finds it worth an afternoon's amusement to pit a son against a father in a battle to the death. Lucas' message here seems to be: Arrogance and complacency lead to a downfall. Too bad that, when he started the process of producing the prequels, he didn't take a few hours to review his own best work and remind himself of that lesson.

Sharknado: Yer Silly and Ya Know It

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I didn't actually watch very much of this, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, before I found something better to do. Truth be told, it didn't look all that bad for a movie that was meant to be bad, about as much fun as most low-budget, crappy-on-purpose, generally uninspired exploitation movies of the kind that have become popular in the last ten years or so, especially on the Syfy Channel. The joke just wore off for me, and once that happens, why commit to another hour of viewing?

Just ahead of it in the lineup was another cheap shark attack movie with cartoony CG effects, this one featuring a giant shark that could wiggle around on land like a seal. It traps a woman in a cave, so she throws a bundle of dynamite down its throat and blows it up, sort of like the finale of Jaws if Jaws cost $200. She exits the cave covered in seaweed and shark guts, then walks off into the sunset with a guy dressed like Jimmy Buffett.

It's funny because it's supposed to be, as is Sharknado, and it makes me think about the nature of this kind of movie at the present moment. It's great that cheaply produced exploitation movies are still a big part of the cinematic landscape (In the interest of not coming off like a pretentious douche, I'm trying to avoid using words like “film” and “cinema” instead of “movies”, but for the sake of variety I'm probably going to show occasional lapses), showing up on cable and video instead of drive-ins and movie houses like the bygone days of yesteryear. But there's a marked difference in style. The majority of monster movies up until the '80's were meant to be taken more or less at face value, regardless of quality. If there was humor, it was oriented around the characters; people told jokes or did funny things, but the movies were not themselves jokes.

A lot of that has changed. At least as far as Syfy Original Movies go, standard practice seems to be to produce work that is mostly meant to be a gag. No one would think Sharktopus or Giant Boa Vs. Monster Gator or whatever is a straight-faced monster movie. Self-referential irony is a hallmark of this genre, and since we're living in the post-post-post-post irony era, where people wear clothes and facial hair intended to make them look stupid because it's cool to like stupid things for being stupid, smart low-budget producers put out stuff designed to make bad movie fans say, “That looks totally ridiculous, I have to see it.”

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More power to them. Sometimes you want to watch something unapologetically trashy so you can point and laugh and roll your eyes. It's a good way to kill an hour and a half. I'm curious to see where the trend goes in the next ten years.

Evil Bong, and Stoner Movies In General

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I didn't set out to watch Evil Bong because I thought it would be good, but I was hoping it would be the kind of bad I could get into. You know, Bride of the Monster, Battlefield Earth, bad like that. I remember seeing a copy of it on a shelf at a Blockbuster and thinking, Jesus that looks awful. There's Tommy Chong mugging over an image of a weird bong with a face, psychedelic colors and pot-leaf lettering to let you know this is a stoner movie, just in case the title Evil Bong left any doubt. How can something like that be anywhere close to good? Or even watchable? I suppose it could have been a lot of things: a sly and knowing satire of stoner comedy, a parody of franchise horror, or possibly a movie so incredibly inept that the embarrassing dialogue, painful line readings and laughable staging would make it a fun ninety minutes.

No, turns out it's just stupid. It's “bad-bad”, not “good-bad”. Just incompetent enough to be dull, insulting, and lazy, but not to the extent that you shake your head in disbelief. What happens in Evil Bong is all too believable, because it's no stretch to imagine a production company throwing together a cynical, boring piece of shit with the intention of cashing in on that lucrative too-baked-to-give-a-shit-about-what-I'm-watching market.

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Here's a sketch of the story: Nerdy college student rents a room with three stoner room mates. One of the room mates buys a bong online from somebody in New Orleans. The bong arrives, the stoners smoke out, and one by one they disappear into an alternate dimension that looks like a cheap strip club, populated by dwarves, strippers, and random characters from other Charles Band movies (the Gingerdead Man shows up for a second, and I think the lead from the Trancers series makes an appearance) A couple of the stoners are bitten by vampire strippers, but it's never mentioned again afterwards and has no bearing on the story. Meanwhile, the evil bong grows stronger from having fed on their souls or something, and develops both a face and a phoney Creole accent. The nerdy student and his girlfriend are the last to be sent to the interdimensional strip club once they figure out what's going on, and that's when Tommy Chong walks in as the bong's previous owner. He fails to kill it with a hammer and a chainsaw, so he takes a hit off it and goes to the strip club and blah blah they leave an opening for a sequel (two of them, actually).

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I only have a passing familiarity with the work of Charles Band, but I see that Evil Bong is one of his. He's kind of a next-generation Roger Corman, responsible for a lot of the cheap, schlocky stuff that used to litter the horror and sci-fi sections of my local video store. While Corman achieved a touch of respectability with his loose Poe adaptations back in the sixties, Band has produced almost nothing but dreck, except for two loose adaptations of Lovecraft, Re-Animater and From Beyond, which he executive produced. I don't have to have seen most of it to know it's bad; I saw Mausoleum (which is actually good-bad now that I think of it—there's a part where a woman's boobs turn into demons and chew through a guy's chest, a scene that gets a nod here) and Robot Jox, so after Evil Bong, what more proof do I need? I'm not knocking the guy, he's in the movie business to make money, but, like Corman, he churns out some serious garbage as a result (Irrelevant side note: The best thing I've ever seen of Corman's is Death Race 2000, and the worst is Creature From The Haunted Sea).

The sad thing is seeing Tommy Chong in this. Not surprising, just sad, in the way it's always sad to see a performer decades past his initial fame trying to capitalize on tired schtick. I was never a big fan of the Cheech and Chong phenomena, even when I used to get ripped on a daily basis. Anyone over the age of ten who finds them unironically hilarious needs anticoagulants to prevent another stroke. They were sporadically funny, at best, but they occupy a space in the hearts of at least three generations of stoners, a demographic with famously low standards in everything but plant strains. From what I can see, stoner humor consists mostly of “Dude, those guys are baked!” and “Check it out, they've got the munchies! 'Cause they're baked!” Sometimes it hits the mark; Robert DeNiro spacing off and fumbling with a phone in Jackie Brown is funny because it's fucking true, that's pretty much what it's like to be stoned, and the portrayal is not a flattering one because it mocks how completely unfocused and bungled a person is while under the influence. That's one of the reasons I liked The Pineapple Express so much. It's shockingly honest about what it's like to live the life of a chronic pot user, from Seth Rogan's character admitting that he only hangs out with his dealer because he's his dealer, not because he actually likes him, to taking stock of his situation and admitting to himself that all of the bad decisions he makes, he makes while high. Can you picture Cheech and Chong being that insightful in their heyday?

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Man of Steel: When It's Cheap to See, I'll Watch It

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I haven't seen the new Superman movie, and probably won't until it comes out on video. My wife and I were on a short summer movie kick, spending good money to see Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness in an actual movie theater, one of them in 3D, which was pointless. Good movies, good enough to make us think it would be worth our while to keep going to the movies all summer. Some of them looked fun: a big budget zombie extravaganza, a new take on the Lone Ranger, and Superman.

But I took a look at those previews for Man of Steel, and I thought, God that looks dreary. Dark, somber, serious, pretentious, and no fun at all. Nothing in those previews made me want to hand over any money at the box office. Nothing about those previews promised that I was going to have a good time watching Superman fighting General Zod and his minions and building a relationship with Lois Lane.

Not that my opinion counts for anything. Apparently Man of Steel has already made a bunch of money and a sequel is in the works. The fact that it's a big summer movie, and a superhero movie to boot, likely played in its favor. For all I know, it's great. I won't know until it comes out on video. It doesn't look all that good, and the reviews have been mixed at best, so the impression I get is that I might think it's just basically kind of okay and a decent way to kill a couple of hours, but not worth seeing more than once, an accusation you can level at any number of mega-budget Hollywood movies.

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I saw the first three Christopher Reeve Superman films when they came out, and stopped after the third. The first two are perfect movies for young kids, full of fantasy, humor, wish-fulfillment, and spectacle. Seeing Margot Kidder buried alive in her car scared me, and seeing Superman's reaction made me want to cry (though I didn't—who wants to look like a baby?) His reversal of time by flying around the Earth until it revolves backwards is a cultural touchstone on a par with “Here's lookin' at you, kid.” His fight against three Kryptonian supervillians in the sequel, coupled with his decision to renounce his own superpowers, achieves a level of drama deeper than the first film and a tone that is dark, yet manages not to be off-putting. They're classics for a reason.

All I'll say about the third movie is that it sucked, and I thought that as a grade schooler. Richard Pryor being nowhere near funny, Superman getting drunk and being a dick, a lame villian, that's just some stupid shit. You can see why I didn't bother with the fourth, though I hear it's a laugh riot.

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Then there's Superman Returns, an inoffensive and bland non-adventure that moves like a glacier and leaves you wondering why they bothered if they were only going to do things half-assed. There was one moment there, when Superman prevents an airliner from crashing, accompanied by that awesome John Williams score, where I thought “That's it, that's the stuff.” I was almost six years old again. But then boredom ensued for the next hour and a half. Really too bad, considering all the money they spent.

(On a side note: How come kryptonite made Superman all weak and vulnerable to stabbing at one point in the story, but later he can lift a whole island of the stuff and hurl it into space? Did being stabbed with a piece of kryptonite make him immune? You can't make Superman immune to kryptonite, it's a part of his thing. It's like if at the end of The Dark Knight, Batman learned to laugh and love and sing Paul McCartney songs on open mike night. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't fit the character as he's been established, something you're generally not supposed to do, J.J. Abrams' radical reworking of the Star Trek timeline notwithstanding.)

I doubt there are any moments in the new movie that will be fondly remembered years from now. Don't know how I know that, but I do. Few gargantuan blockbusters have those moments nowadays. Blame oversaturation and hyperstimulation. Everything has the same digital effects, the same story elements, the same characters. Everything is a blockbuster, a mega-movie, a sensory carpet bombing. Hardly anything stands out or feels new. The last genuinely fresh Hollywood movie I can remember is the first Matrix, and that was almost fifteen years ago. The recent Batman trilogy felt kind of fresh, but they aren't when you remember that there have been Batman movies since the mid-sixties. Brand recognition is the current ideology, so it all tastes stale before you've even put it in your mouth.

From what I understand, Man of Steel shoots for that same gritty intensity that mostly helped the Batman trilogy, and I'm hardly the first person to think that's an awful idea. Batman is dark, so you tell his stories dark. Superman is fun, he's breezy and charming, old-fashioned and nostalgic like a Frank Capra movie. The Christopher Reeve version nailed that feeling, because the filmmakers understood the character. I don't think anyone does anymore, at least not anyone who makes movies in Hollywood. “Gritty worked for Batman, so that must be what people want. We'll do every movie gritty now. I'm so full of good ideas.”

There's the school of thought that says now that we're here in post-9/11 America, we want to see the harsh reality of the tragedy and the subsequent wars somehow metaphorically encapsulated in what we watch. But we don't. We want to be entertained, just like always, and not be bored. Some folks get that. How about those Iron Man movies and The Avengers? Lots of fun, and a little breezy, but just serious enough to make you care what happens. Iron Man even had Middle Eastern terrorists in it, and still didn't over-play the whole post-9/11 thing. That's class.

The boredom will start to set in for us in a few years. Hollywood will have explored every avenue of the hyper-expensive superhero movie, topping budgets that are already hovering around a quarter of a billion dollars, telling stories that are not new, never inspired, and look practically the same as stuff that came out a couple of years ago. Marvel Studios is entering into what they call “Phase II”, meaning a sequel to Captain America, to Thor, to The Avengers, and a new project called Guardians of the Galaxy that sounds a little like a cross between The Avengers and Star Wars. It's all going to be the same as what has already come out, except a bit different, like when Oreos have chocolate filling.

I think they ought to dial it back a bit. Cut out the sensory overload. Go ahead and use the digital effects and big name actors, but can we all take a breath, reflect and relax? It's too bad they've already made a new Superman, because an alternate take won't come along for a long time. Maybe not ever.

I've been having this mental image of the Man of Steel floating casually above a billowing cloud bank. The clouds are white and fluffy, like piles of cotton. He cruises along at a moderate speed, and through breaks in the clouds one can see the blue, sparkling waters of a bay and the edge of a city far below. A bridge spans the bay, vaguely resembling the Golden Gate. Several hundred feet below Superman, a zeppelin goes by. And a biplane. The world around him has the feel of the late '30's or early '40's, and as he swoops toward the buildings, in no great hurry but with some apparent destination in mind, Metropolis appears practically identical to the Manhattan of that time. Closing in, we can see vintage Fords and Studebakers, people in period clothes, and a general hustle and bustle that is unmistakably urban, yet unrushed. Perhaps there's a little Glenn Miller piping in the background. Once at street level, without even touching his feet to the pavement, Superman disappears into a phone booth (were there phone booths in the late '30's? Who cares, this isn't really our world) and walks out wearing a suit, a hat, and Clark Kent's trademark glasses. With a newspaper tucked under one arm, he walks the few blocks to the building housing the Daily Planet's offices, and begins a new day.

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ONE BLOG ENDS, ANOTHER BEGINS...

Just a little heads up for my readers (assuming both of you are still reading):  Scotty's Movies N' Tunes is going on a little hiatus, possibly for a year.  I'll be working on my new blog, tentatively titled Eastern Trails, documenting the adventures of me and my wife as we embark on a journey volunteering on a series of farms and such throughout the eastern United States.  I'll try to update that one a little more frequently than I did Movies N' Tunes, hopefully once a week.  If I find time to post anything to this blog, I will, but I can't make any promises.  One thing I can promise is that I'll resume it once we return to our home base of Tucson, AZ sometime next year.

Thanks and appreciation to anyone who took the time to read this blog.  No blogger can expect to draw much of an audience, and those who gave it just a little of their attention have earned my gratitude.  

See you on the road!  

THE GREY

I should probably warn anyone reading this who hasn't seen the movie that there might be a spoiler, of sorts, even though I have no intention of giving too much away. It's just that I can't talk about what I thought was the coolest aspect of this film without going into the ending a little, so forgive me if I accidentally—or just carelessly—ruin your viewing of The Grey with anything you come across here. Besides, knowing the ending won't ruin what is ultimately a satisfying experience, assuming you like your entertainment kind of gritty.

Any movie that starts with Liam Neeson sticking the barrel of a rifle in his mouth promises to be pretty dark, so you can't go into this hoping for a happy ending. The title's kind of a giveaway—what would you expect from a movie called The Grey? What other kind of movie would that title be appropriate for? Something about the Civil War? Depressing. About food? Disgusting. About elderly people? Boring. No, grey is the color they invented Prozac for, it's the color of suicide and horrible weather. It has little to no positive emotional connotations. The filmmakers chose well.

Which is not to say that The Grey is a downbeat experience. Far from it. Nearly everything about it is gripping and intense, there's a good deal of suspense throughout, and I believe anyone watching it would have a hard time not picturing themselves in the same situation and wondering if they could push themselves to the same extremes.

Neeson plays a man who shoots wolves for a living in order to protect the lives of oil rig workers in Alaska. One of the opening scenes of the film depicts him taking out a wolf as it charges a couple of men, oblivious to what's coming their way. It becomes clear early on that he's dealing with some serious personal issues...As I said, he almost shoots himself in the first few minutes. A little later, he boards a flight with a number of workers, and on the way the plane goes down in a remote part of the Alaskan wilderness in the middle of winter. Neeson and several other men survive the crash, but have little food and not much idea how to keep themselves alive in a hostile environment.

Along with the cold, a hungry and very territorial pack of wolves makes life miserable for these men. They have no choice but to try to find help, and that involves a difficult, grueling trek across an unforgiving tundra. This leads to a lot of tension between the characters, not to mention some unproductive chest-thumping. I liked this element of the story, mainly because I think it's pretty likely that a group of macho guys like this would have a hard time working together under such trying circumstances without somebody vying for the position of alpha male. That person, of course, winds up being Liam Neeson, in case you had any doubts. None of this comes across as clichéd or obvious, and instead feels like a natural part of the narrative. It's fitting for a story depicting these kinds of characters, and the actors bring it all off convincingly.

It's a pretty grim story of survival. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say most of the men don't make it. Between the wolves, the cold, and the usual injuries that occur while tromping around blind in an unfamiliar world—or trying to shimmy down a rope over a yawning chasm—these guys don't have much working in their favor. It gets to a point where you wonder if any of them are going to live.

That's what's so surprising about The Grey, and what finally makes it a rewarding viewing experience. Hollywood almost never makes movies this genuinely intense or bleak. Oh sure, lots of Hollywood movies look bleak or have dark themes, but few of them really go the distance the way this one does. The only other one I can think of is Se7en—no happy ending there. Even Fight Club and Schindler's List sort of ended on high notes. The Grey is a slightly different breed of storytelling.

In truth, this isn't really a movie about survival at all. The fact that most of the cast doesn't survive effectively underscores that point. What The Grey is trying to tell us goes a bit deeper than that. This is a story about the inevitability of death, and humankind's relationship with its own mortality. All of us will die, and the only difference between us in that regard is how we deal with it. Some of us are stricken down without warning, some die violently, others quietly accept their fate and wait for death to come, and still others choose to fight it until their last. This film pretty much covers the full range.

It's Neeson's character who chooses to fight, and I have to say, the last final scene in this movie is one of the most badass things I've seen in a while. I'd say it's totally the equal of Chow Yun Fat sliding down a banister while shooting two pistols at the same time in Hard-Boiled, or Clint Eastwood blowing away a gang of rangy outlaws in A Fistful of Dollars. Neeson faces down the alpha wolf of the very pack that has been picking off his companions with nothing but a knife in one hand a few broken airplane liquor bottles wedged between his fingers in the other. The confrontation is executed perfectly, with zero pandering to the audience. It is simply the toughest, baddest, grittiest thing I've witnessed in a movie for years.