Movies are a great source of knowledge, and occasionally this information carries over from one movie to another.  Such is the case with Liam Neeson.  Lesson 1) do not mess with Liam Neeson's family (See Taken, Rob Roy).  Lesson 2) do not wrong Liam Neeson and then save his life (Batman Begins).  Lesson 3) do not attempt to kill Liam Neeson or he will kill you (Unknown, Taken, Darkman, The A-Team, Rob Roy).  Lesson 4) If you successfully kill Liam Neeson you must also slay any remaining members of his family and or disciples because if you don't they will find you and they will kill you (Phantom Menace, Kingdom of Heaven, Gangs of New York).  Lesson 5) You probably never actually killed Liam Neeson to begin with (Darkman, Chronicles of Narnia).  The Grey manages to teach us a new lesson: Lesson 6) Even when Liam Neeson no longer has the will to live, his will to live is stronger than yours.

 

All that being said watching Liam Neeson vs. Wolves is still an enjoyable tale that feels like it brings something new to the Chronicles of the world's most intimidating almost-Hexagenarian.  It's hard to really talk much about the plot because the entire plot is pretty much displayed in the trailer.  Plane crashes, survivors now have to escape wolves hunting them down.  What the trailers never quite adequately display is the sheer intensity of the movie.  The plane crash sequence in and of itself left multiple people in the audience audibly using profanity in shock and for anyone who already has a fear of flying that particular sequence will stick with you for a long time.

 

The movie is paced very well with some slow moving sequences interrupted by viciously stress inducing moments of violence and gore.  The use of real wolves and animatronics rather than CGI also gives the movie a visceral quality of threat.  Filming on location in a crap load of real snow also gives the battle for survival a real feel of weight.  Fans of crisp high definition movie sequences will be somewhat disappointed by the film quality as the film stock has a distinctly 1980's feel to it, but instead of just feeling muddy it instead adds to the atmosphere of the movie.  The script is keen enough to have the actions and events among the party mirror the wolves themselves, but doesn’t feel ham-fisted when it does so. 

 

If you do see this movie it is one of the few times you really must sit through the credits.  While the credits themselves aren't particularly interesting afterwards is a 5-second coda that feels entirely necessary to provide a satisfying emotional conclusion to the movie.  If you don't stay for it the movie will probably feel like it ends awkwardly, probably in a manner too close to the short story it is based on.  If you don't stay through the credits then any hard feelings you have from the initial ending are on you.

 

I rate this movie a 2.98 out of 3.14