Marketing bait-and-switch tactics are nothing new, especially when it comes to the movies. But the instances where the film ends up being a more meaningful and impactful experience than any of the ads could have possibly indicated? Pretty rare. Luckily, The Grey is one of those films. You go in expecting some awesome Liam-on-wolf action interspersed with a plane crash and guys braving the Alaskan elements. You get all that, just not necessarily in the measurements or contexts you were thinking.

We start off with Neeson’s character, John Ottway, writing a letter to his wife. She’s gone, and if you’ve read up on the flick you may already know the context, but if you haven’t, you are left wondering.

It’s a great set up to the character and film – he’s on the edge of darkness both physically and mentally, and it’s a wolf’s cry that keeps him from taking an irreversible step – perhaps an overlooked irony by many once the movie ends.

Ottway wanders through the camp, fulfilling his duty, more like a zombie than a man. A ghost of whatever his former self was capable of being. He’s distant and cold like his surroundings, and when he gets on the plane to leave there’s a sense that he’s about to become even more lost. But that changes when a horrific crash results in Ottway being one of just eight survivors.

Minutes after they gather together to assess the situation, one of the men’s wounds take him. It’s a stirring scene that sets the dismal tone for the rest of the movie and features an inspired, brief exchange that Neeson pulls off perfectly. So with only seven left, they gather things together and start a fire. Night comes first. And then the wolves.

What follows is a thrilling horror film with plenty of dramatic elements. Each character is real, relatable, conflicted and contradictory. They are people and as they band together you can’t help but be enthralled with their fight for survival. Whether by the wolves, the elements, or each other, their numbers dwindle with time. But rather than a simple horror movie in a race to a last-man-standing battle, this film dares to have its characters think and ask questions. And it asks questions of us.

The brilliance of it lies in the fact that we aren’t allowed to just watch these characters fight for their lives, we are engaged within the experience. What would we do in those situations? What would we fight for? What would we believe? What would take us home?

Obviously these are huge questions, central to the core of any person and informing our entire worldview. And the survivors have differing answers to those questions, and ask different questions of their own. It’s not all in alignment, there is no agreement at the end of each conversation,  and I think that’s the point. The movie starts with the premise that life is. It just is. Beyond that, we make choices, whether right or wrong, and it’s all we can do. What we believe, how we feel, how we act – all things that are up to us at any given moment, and capable of dramatic change depending on so many factors in our lives. So when it comes down to the line, when it’s just a case of survival and nothing else, the biggest question is – do we fight?

This movie features tough scenes and poses unflinching questions about life, love, and faith, and I was very moved by its raw emotional honesty. It’s affecting in an exact way that I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced before – it’s more than just the “slow burn” or cathartic/inspiring finish we so often see, it’s almost like a tantric exercise in the filmgoing experience. What I mean by that phrasing is that it’s a horror thriller with dramatic elements throughout the course of the story, with the balance constantly shifting up until the very end – when some questions are answered (“it’s worth fighting for”) and a whole slew of others are raised and left up to us. Some people may not like it, or they many find it unfulfilling at first, but I found it to be just what I needed to round out that story. It really is expertly crafted.

There came a moment during the lead up to the end where I thought they may close the movie in a certain way, and then they did. It took guts. It’s not some cheap trick to get sequels or to provoke a surface-level reaction in the audience – it’s a measured device that serves the story perfectly and provokes a serious gut-level reaction. It’s more than just the normal scrambling to answer questions when the credits roll.

If you’re squeamish with guts, whether visually or metaphorically, this may be too rough of an experience for you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. This film is most certainly not for everyone. It’s dark, it’s dismal, and it’s grim all the way through. That being said, if it’s the type of film that you are up for, it really can move you at your core – but only if you let it.

You may remember hearing about this movie focused on brothers in a mixed martial arts tournament earlier in 2011. You may have seen some TV spots, maybe some internet ads, and a whole lot of positive tweets – but if you’re like me, you didn’t see the movie in theaters. Why? Well, it didn’t look all that interesting. I don’t remember seeing a full trailer for it at any point, just short tv spots and blurbs online, and the previews I did see weren’t compelling. But I kept seeing positive buzz online, and then this past weekend I found the movie available to rent through Redbox.

The story focuses on two brothers, Brendan and Tommy, and their father, Paddy. It’s clear from the beginning that they’ve had a rough life up to this point. Tommy returns to his dad’s house, mostly silent but a tough-as-nails hulk of a guy. Paddy taught them how to wrestle as children, and Tommy asks him to train him once again for a mixed martial arts tournament that’s coming up. He makes it clear he doesn’t want to talk or bond with his father, just train. All business. His motivation for all of this is revealed gradually throughout the film.

Brendan is a teacher with a wife and children who is about to lose his house to foreclosure. He put his wrestling to use earlier in life as a UFC fighter, and now he goes to small night fights to pick up extra cash on the side. This complicates things and leads to him also train (with an old friend) to enter the same tournament.

Throughout the course of the film the guys train and we explore their family’s history and how it brought them to where they are – it’s all in bits and pieces, and contrary to what you may think, it’s very compelling. The storytelling is fantastic here, and the three leads are all perfect in their respective roles.

Nick Nolte is subtle yet powerful as a recovering alcoholic desperate to make up for lost time with his children. Joel Edgerton’s character is focused and determined, anything but a quitter. And then there’s Tom Hardy’s Tommy. He’s quiet, mean, hostile and aggressive – all of which is explained by the things we learn about him and his past along the way. In a few particularly powerful scenes, he unloads on his father before showing a completely different side, one which is only hinted at and vaguely referenced up until that point. He’s the toughest character in the story, but it’s because of his childhood. He expects complete and utter vulnerability before he will show it in return – and it’s then and only then that he does so.

I don’t want to spoil anything because the story is really captivating and worth experiencing, but as you’d expect the film climaxes with the brothers being the last two opponents in the tournament. The final fight is a powerful moment, and it grabs you and holds you up until the very end even if you don’t realize it – you may even find yourself in tears by the time the credits roll.

I loved Hugo because it was a celebration of the power of movies. But now that I’ve seen Warrior, it is definitely the best picture of 2011 in my opinion – because it is that power. An underrated, inspiring, and deeply moving film that I encourage you to check out.

So far this is my pick for best picture out of those receiving a lot of awards buzz. Hugo starts out exactly as the trailers indicated, a young boy in the train station who evades the security guard and steals food to survive, all while working on the clocks to keep everything running smoothly for all those pesky adults who don’t seem to have a high regard for him.

We learn that his father died recently, and left him with an automoton, a little robot built to perform a specific function – in this case, writing. What message will it write once it’s been fixed up and repaired? That’s the number one thing on Hugo’s mind. Circumstances continuously make finishing the task challenging, but he continues on in the hopes that whatever the machine writes for him will give him some sense of clarity in regards to his father’s untimely death, and perhaps reveal his purpose now that he’s been left behind.

The film takes a turn, however, and explores Hugo’s questions in another direction after the first act. It’s somewhat familiar to see gruff old men gradually lowering their guard the more time they spend with a curious and intelligent young chap, and to learn that there is some dark secret of his past that he avoids at all costs — even though its remnants are locked up in a box somewhere at home. But the difference is that when this movie delves into that facet of the story the result shapes the rest of the film in what many may find to be a surprising way.

Without giving too much away, this is a film about film. About the power and mystery of movies, the magic of the experience, the dusty old reels found in closets somewhere that end up being some absolutely breathtaking discovery of long lost footage. It’s easy to talk about it all in such lofty, broad terms, but to describe beat for beat how Hugo (as a movie and a character) explores all of this and is changed by it would ruin the experience — and isn’t the experience the entire point?

It may seem like the plot is a little light in parts, but I disagree with those complaints. What the character development or plot points may be lacking, the meat of the journey more than makes up for by the end of the film. We start in familiar movie territory and by the end Scorsese has taken us to that most spectacular place where we never and completely expect to go, all at once and with all the feeling. It’s the essence of films, the reason we see them and the reason they have captured our imaginations since their birth — the magic of the movies is limitless.

I encourage everyone to give this movie a view, but most of all I urge film lovers of any and all genres to check this movie out. You’ll find something refreshing and familiar even as it surprises you with newfound wonder.

“Come and dream with me.”

This is one of those movies that I’ll forever associate with the “missed opportunity” category. The premise is interesting – people stop aging at 25, but time has replaced money as currency – meaning the rich live as long as they want, and the poor live day to day, but usually even less.

We meet Will, Justin Timberlake’s character, right away. He’s your everyday hero with a modest living – he works in a factory, he is paid daily and lives daily along with his mother, played by Olivia Wilde. She obviously looks younger than her character really is, and therein lies the biggest problem with the first act – it’s hard to emotionally relate to a situation or human bond on screen when we’re so used to our own normal aging appearances.

But if you are willing to accept that conceit, some predictable plot points, and really the overall premise itself – you may find yourself enjoying the first act for what it is: set up, the beginning of an entertaining story. By no means a film, but definitely an interesting movie.

But then the rest of the movie happens.

Yes, it is that tragic. A plot point designed to give Will motivation only manages to do so for about thirty seconds or more, if even that. It gets a little fuzzy as he’s in the midst of making his move – which ends up never really being a very concrete move, more just a few things that happen for no reason other than Will seems to be as curious as we are about what the rich neighborhood is like.

Then Amanda Seyfried comes into the film. I’m about to get into a lot regarding this movie, but before I do let me say that Justin Timberlake is a phenomenal actor even when he has little to no material to work with. The other supporting actors do okay with what they have. Amanda Seyfried, on the other hand, is either a complete lack of performance or a complete lack of direction. It’s a really backwards credit to the film that it’s not entirely clear which is the case.

Her hair is stupid.

Once the film is set up, Will receives a huge amount of time from a rich guy tired of living and is able to travel to the rich district. It looks like it’s a certain section of North America, and takes what seems like all day to get there – but later he and Sylvia (Seyfried) travel back to the “ghetto” in what seems like minutes. The constant back and forth between districts in different amounts of time gets worse and more confusing the longer the movie goes on.

He says something about going there initially to make them pay, to take everything from them. At that point I was expecting a really badass thriller of a movie to follow, but instead, the main character sort of goes from scene to scene without any clear sense of direction. He’s still living day to day, but now it’s in the rich city. Then the cops get involved and he makes some very questionable quick decisions – and if you weren’t thrown off by the lack of a coherent narrative, you’d be irritated that he seems to suddenly develop the martial arts skills of a badass whenever he’s in a tricky situation.

It gets worse. He takes Sylvia hostage (sort of?) and heads back to the ghetto. She saves him from the cops at one point (by shooting the main one!) and decides she likes the rebellious lifestyle. Some scenes follow that aren’t totally clear in their intention – are they supposed to be romantic? Comedic? I found myself (and my wife and the rest of the audience) laughing when we probably weren’t supposed to, and silent when it seemed we were supposed to be laughing. I thought this was a thriller, so what the f is up with the second act?

Justin Timberlake searching desperately for a rewritten screenplay.

There are scenes interspersed throughout lacking much skill as far as filmmaking goes – one involves the wounded cop from earlier walking down a random street to meet his subordinate and drive away. The street is lined by higher level areas that happen to be full of angry citizens, harassing and chiding the cop on his walk of shame. Let’s break this down: the purpose of the scene is to show that the general populace doesn’t care for the cops, and to allow the subordinate to witness that his boss was given some time (which in fact saved his life) by their prey (our “hero”). Unfortunately, the first thing doesn’t really matter, and the second could just as easily have been accomplished in another scene. To top it off, the scene is much longer than it needs to be, awkwardly so, and they use a wide shot more than once – which shows us that the extras are huddled around the center of the screen, but the rest of the place is completely empty. Dead. Which makes it look to the audience like the filmmakers thought to themselves “crap, we need to do this scene!” so they got their friends together in some spot downtown and filmed the guy walking through a crowd of randoms.

There’s quite a bit of that bad direction going on, with many scenes feeling either purposeless or stuffed in the middle of real story/plot. Which for this movie, isn’t saying much. The climax takes place on an empty country road, and calls back to the plot point from the first act. Which might be cool except for how completely underwhelming the climax is as a whole, and man, that setting didn’t do it any favors. It’s all very confusing, as Andrew Niccol handles the first act of his story pretty well, and he’s proven himself a talented director on movies like Gattaca and Lord of War in the past. Who knows what factors played a role in the shaping of the movie, but either way it’s below his proven quality and talent.

I have to say, I’m betting the climax read really well at the script level – callbacks to earlier story points, the guy and the girl succeed in their mission (though the success takes place far away from them? So incoherent as an ending). But on screen? It’s boring story-wise, it’s boring visually, and it’s kind of hard to understand on more than one level.

Throughout the second and third act I kept thinking “this could be the perfect movie for the Occupy movement!” It’s all about going against the powerful 1% that controls the majority of wealth, the world in which we live, and almost every aspect of our lives – except our free will, our drive to fight back for justice. It could have been perfect! But the story was so poorly executed in the second and third act that it’s too fuzzy and incoherent to really apply to any real movement or attitude. I really think that if this film was done right, it could speak to a huge portion of the population right now, representing their anxieties, fears, and hopes in an interesting and thrilling sci-fi metaphor of a story.

Unfortunately, In Time misses the mark.

After a lot of hype and anticipation, Thor is finally coming to theaters. There’s good news: it was worth the wait!

Let me start by saying I am not familiar with the Thor comics. In fact, I’m really not familiar with any comics at all – I’ve read a few graphic novels, but haven’t ever gotten into a comic series or kept up to speed with a continuing and evolving story line. Most of my knowledge of comic book characters or their stories comes from their influence on pop culture, especially the movies of more recent years. I love movies, and for some reason I tend to love heroes that get really strong and break a lot of stuff, so as you can imagine, I have seen most of the recent major comic book movies and enjoyed quite a few of them.

All that said, let’s get into Thor. The movie starts off with Thor arriving on Earth sans armor and hammer. We then leap through space back to Asgard, where we learn about Thor’s upcoming succession to the throne and witness him nearly wreck a peace treaty with another civilization, the Frost Giants. This leads his father, Odin, to banish him to Earth, stripped of his powers and hammer until he’s worthy of wielding them again.

The film alternates between events happening on Earth and on Asgard, as Thor struggles to adjust to newfound mortality and his brother Loki weasels his way onto the throne. And while both realms are interesting and never lose the momentum of the story, you can’t help but enjoy the scenes where the brothers are together a little more than the rest, because that’s really the core of the story – family drama.

Kenneth Branagh directs, putting his Shakespeare experience to good use. This is about a god with an awesome hammer from a magical realm who becomes a super hero on Earth, and it could very easily turn into a wacky, over the top ball of cheese – but it doesn’t. For the epic scope of it, the intensely fantastic canvas it plays out on, it still feels grounded somehow. The key is Branagh, who takes a script with a few weaker spots, but with a solid and familiar structure, and truly focuses on the characters.

Many directors and event films like this tout their “focus on the characters,” but this is a movie where it’s obviously happened. There are funny moments, there are touching moments, there are cliche moments, but you know that the characters feel something for each other, no matter what the emotion may be, and it’s clear in their faces, in their words, and in their actions. They communicate subtleties through their eyes and body language, and that’s something so easily missed or lost when making a film like this, where your main character has a large armor get up with a big red cape. Not to mention a giant hammer.

The relationship(s) between Thor, Odin, and Loki are crucial to the plot of the film and form the basis for our connection with the story. It’s just so palatable when presented as a struggle for acceptance in the eyes of a parent, and the trickery and deception that can take hold and play out when there are insecurities, pride, and tension there. Regardless of the degree of similarity to our own family dynamics, we can relate in some way to this struggle; we may not work for the admiration of a parent, but of a friend, or of a lover. We all strive for connection and to give those connections meaning our actions must match our intentions.

You might be thinking, oh, connection, so there’s a love story in this too, huh? Yes, Natalie Portman’s character is a love interest for Thor, but it doesn’t exactly play out in the ways you would expect from the formula. The infatuation is there, but it’s not overstated, and in fact it only really approaches crossing the line on a few occasions, which themselves are even more typical of movies like this. You’ll know when you see them, and if you are like me, they won’t bother you. Even at its worst with the love story, the film bounces back quickly and eventually arrives to a surprising and satisfying conclusion.

Thor’s journey has such a wide range – we meet him as an arrogant, reckless god and see him humbled (more than once) as a mortal. When he loses his power and his hammer, he really loses his identity. No wonder this is such an appealing story for young adults and adolescents; the former are redefining their identity as they exit school and begin their life as an adult on their own, and the latter struggle with an identity constantly in flux, stretching and shrinking to fill its shell. So when Thor loses himself, we understand that he is lost, and we want to see his triumphant self-recovery. We want him to win out, because we want to win out.

So there is substance and it works. (There’s even a well-placed Dutch angle or two!) What about the action? I saw the film in 3D, which looked pretty cool. It was crisp and clean, not dark at all, so the conversion in post seems to have been much better executed in this instance than with some past films. The action was quick and didn’t translate to 3D as well, but even so I found the fight scenes well done and really fun to watch. The Earthbound sets are convincing and fun, and Asgard is absolutely awesome to behold. Nearly every scene there is filled to the brim with eye-candy, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again on Blu-ray in the future.

The bottom line is that while it’s by no means perfect, Thor still exceeds expectations in so many ways that it succeeds at being more than just another summer blockbuster or comic book movie; it’s actually a film, a story about a midlife crisis and the journey to find reinvigorated purpose, hammer in hand – even as your family falls apart.

The third of the great horror icons produced by Universal Pictures, The Wolf Man follows Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot back to his ancestral home to reconnect with his father Sir Talbot, played by Claude Rains.

After arriving in town, Larry takes a liking to a local girl (Gwen) and ends up taking her (and her friend) on a walk to see a gypsy fortuneteller. Jenny has her fortune told while Larry and Gwen talk outside, and then Jenny is attacked as she leaves the gypsy camp. Larry fights off what looks like a wolf, is bitten, and then wakes up the next day healed. Of course, we all know what happens next – Larry finds with the next full moon that he’s now cursed – a werewolf.

While it isn’t perfect, this classic has stood the test of time and continues to be a significant source of inspiration for new approaches to the werewolf myth. Many aspects of the legend in the film, including the gypsy poem and silver being lethal to werewolves, were invented entirely by the writer, Curt Siodmak.

Lon Chaney Jr. filled his most well-known role well, playing the role seriously with anguish and pathos, drawing the audience into his tormented journey. Like the great tragedies, Larry meets a cruel fate and then his attempts to escape it prove futile – but we like Larry, he doesn’t seem like a terrible dude (even though he’s putting the moves on an engaged girl), even if he has his faults we still like him enough to not want him to be cursed forever. But he is. And that terrible, tragic destiny is what draws us to the human side of The Wolf Man – we’re all fighting some things in life that are far beyond our control, but the story of a man cursed as a werewolf offers new depth to that shared feeling. Both fun and darkly thought-provoking, the film comes across as a lean horror flick, but as it unfolds you begin to wonder, what if you were cursed and the lives of others hung in the balance?

With an ending that throws another dark twist of fate on an already tragic tale, The Wolf Man is a classic horror film that, like or know it or not, will continue to influence the werewolf sub-genre for all time.