Intense, fierce and philosphical. Carnahan is finally delivering on his initial promise and Neeson is a force of nature (as usual).

I like that part where Liam Neeson punches a wolf in the face. Wait, he doesn't? But he shoots one with a makeshift bow made out a fallen branch and a strand of woolly mammoth hair, right? No? Hides in a foxhole, waiting for one to come along before jumping out at the last minute and piercing its throat with a pine cone? No? Ruptures one's gut with a shotgun shell-tipped spear before decapitating it and cooking the body over a fire? Yes? Then, I believe the appropriate reaction is "fuck, yeah."

What works: the collapse of masculinity, the sadness, the acceptance, "I've stopped doing this world any real good." The man who protected the others from the 'beasts' thinks his position isn't worth it anymore, and it'd be a shit film if it convinced you that it was. But it doesn't. It lets everyone die. If you're bothered by little illogical bits you'll dislike the film, if not, it's a meditation on failure and helplessness.

poor movie but surprisingly good direction of photography

Liam Neeson gives an excellent performance in this movie. Neeson is the main reason to watch. There are several exciting scenes and the plot is not predictable.

I didn't expect much going in and was pleasantly surprised. A very basic story about survival in the wild it may be on the surface, but at the same time it looks pretty great and has some pretty tense or even touching scenes. The emotional climax was well-earned. I have to admit with some of the other reviewers that the beginning is the strongest, building a mood that it can't quite hold on to.

"Joe Carnahan's film largely works, building toward a great ending, which functions as one of the best, truest action climaxes in recent memory." - Jesse Cataldo

I expected a decent film, but found it to be something much more impressive. The Grey is an incredibly solid piece of work, and easily my favorite film of 2012 thus far. Neeson, whose performance here will undoubtedly be remembered as one of his very best, dazzles in a relatively unknown yet perfectly cast group of actors. Opens with the best plane crash scene I've ever seen and ends - sublimely - on an amazing note; A near-perfect, intelligent film about being alive, on this planet, now.

Man vs digital wolves! I thought it was entertaining for the most part; think survival/slasher flick. There were some great suspenseful bits in an overall atmospheric, moody and introspective film. Unfortunately, it began to pile on the cliches in the latter half and ended with a whimper.

Prior to seeing this in the cinema, I learnt of the death of Liam Neeson's wife and read a short blurb about how this had an effect on his career. With that knowledge in mind, it had quite a profound effect on me to hear him - in character - talking to his - character's - deceased wife. This film was tremendously moving and immensely thrilling - certainly a rewatch and highly recommended.

Howling is by oneself terrifying.

While majority of the characters make some of the downright dumbest decisions ever, I try not to hold that against some of the few virtues of this flick: the cinematography, soundtrack, a handful of decent scenes, and overall themes.

The beginning was excellent, and featured a scene that put me on the verge of tears (I'm no macho man, but movies don't have that effect on me very often). It declines a bit once it goes to the woods, but the poorly done CGI wolves didn't grate on me that badly. The ending, the atmosphere, and great performances from Mulroney and Neeson easily outweigh any issues with special effects.

It's JAWS... but with PAWS!

The beginning of the film promises so much and sets such a beautiful melancholic tone. Unfortunately it suffers from Hollywood ADD and becomes a cliche survival story of men versus nature. In some ways you can view this as a remake of Jaws. Another story of man vs nature vs his inner self. Liam Neeson doesn't wither at the camp quality of the setup but dives right into this role with emotional earnestness which is amazing considering the laughable cgi killer wolves. See it for Liam.

Pish and tosh. What the hell is Liam Neeson thinking these days?

Wolves don't act like humans, but this movie depicts them like they do. Like the ending where they other wolves just let the alpha of the group fight alone. That doesn't happen. There are quite a few unrealistic things like that in the movie, like where did they get enough fabric to cross the cliff? And how did the fabric hold for two grown men? How did they not die after falling into the water in the middle of Alaska? Ignoring all the glaring plot holes, it's still not very good.

Is as cliché as it is badass. Ending could've been an little stronger/Movie could've been a little shorter, though.

I like the beginning of cold and slow shots, and it gets conventional too soon -- everyone gets killed, Neeson struggles almost by himself --, but this is a survival flick with some guts and thrills: even with a bunch of boring CGI wolves, it's possible to be dragged into an enormous amount of (predictably) delicate choices and hard decisions, all of them depicted in pictures of complete isolation. These guys were used to be alone. And now they've got company: death.

Sure, the wolves could've been more realistic but this isn't about wolves. This is a film about man vs the wild and his own inner demons, the wolves are just the vessel for the conflict. Really we haven't seen a movie like that in a while except Into the Wild. Thankfully instead of someone dying miles from a main road we have hard men being bad asses in the middle of nowhere with no one able to save them except themselves. Good to see this out of Carnahan after the disappointing A-Team.

Okay, so the wolf effects weren't great... But Liam Neeson is the epitomization of cool- and ruggedness in this film, truly awesome he is. And the ending is pretty damn cool, too.

Sick and tired of Neeson, same damn character in every single movie.

Neeson is great, but poor directing makes this movie much less effective than it could be.

Enjoyable survival thriller, if you manage to ignore how far it is removed from reality. Characters are like something removed from comic books. Neeson continues his journey as an action movie star, and his character is always the same type of silent tough guy. It's a shame that the whole plot of the movie can be told in two sentence summary.

While quite unrealistic and filled with small mistakes that could had easily avoided. I still found myself enjoying it due to some great themes within the storyline, some beautiful and atmospheric landscape shots that help set the tone perfectly. And the wolfs while not exactly acting like their real life counterpart still came off as scary, brutal, menacing and bad-ass.

i find myself in a bit of a conundrum here. basically, whats happening is all bullshit. the wolves' behavior, how the group fares in the wilderness and not to forget the rope-jump across a cliff with tied sweatshirts...yeah right. on the other hand i really liked the visual style and those quiet, subtle moments when neeson was thinking of his wife and such. it was shot nicely and somewhat gripping and gave depth to the otherwise forgettable characters. hard to judge, this one.

"What'd it want?" "You!" Lots of exchanges like that to be found herein. The movie's stunning to look at, but monotony sets in pretty quickly once it becomes clear that all we're gonna be doing is following Neeson and five or six bland ciphers around in the woods for a few hours until they all die. The wolves basically function as horror movie psychos, leaping out of the dark when we all least expect it. And the character exchanges, when they do happen, are hokey in the extreme.

a survival story where you never feel the pain and sorrow they're going through.. the wisdom of liam neeson's character is annoying

The beginning of the film was pretty mediocre, relying far too heavily on voiceover and appearing way too heavy handed in establishing Neeson's character and environment. While this film had some strong moments, the plane crash scene is particularly effective, I felt the script could have used some more polish and logic.

A problematic, but solid survival thriller. The main problem is that the cast members that are not Neeson are weak and you never root for them. The wolf effects were not terribly impressive.

Weak story Awful Dialog Terrible CGI Bad Movie

Refreshingly frank in a time when most subtext must be wrangled; wholly unafraid to wear its heart on its sleeve and ask the same of its audience. That veneer of machismo that the marketing so brilliantly built is just as much discarded. The vistas are too stirring, the menace too acute, everything strikes the heart as the measure of value -- what wolves mean to us that they don't mean, that they cannot mean as mere canines in the forest. No comment on wolf-boxing.

A gritty survivalist thriller that while adept never really shone for me. The survival element is handled beautifully with some fantastic cinematography emphasizing the natural dangers of Alaska while the ever-present threat of the wolves ramps up the tension. Where the movie falls down for me I think lies in the characterisation. With the exception of Neeson I was never involved enough with any of the characters to care for the frequent and overly-long death scenes.

I'm looking at about fifteen shades of grey right now.

Too many wolf fights; not enough Agalloch.