If you want to see this movie because you saw the preview and think it’s going to involve Liam Neeson killing wolves with his bare hands, my recommendation to you is: go see another movie.

But it SHOULD have involved Liam Neeson fighting and killing wolves with his bare hands! Who the hell wants to sit there for two hours watching these guys get eaten? What’s the point of that? So we can relish in the scintillating dialog? “I can’t believe we fuckin went down!” “We have to make a fire, or we’ll die!” “By the time they find us, we’ll be dead.” “Either we make it to those trees, or we die!” “Either we find a way across there, or we die.” “No one voted you the leader of shit!” “Listen to me: you’re gonna die.”

Or how about each time the wolves take down the guy bringing up the rear and the others turn around and yell “OH FUCK!” Or even better: every time you see several black dots moving fast in the distance, they all start yelling “Oh my God! Run!” Honestly, how much of this shit are we expected to sit through?!

Can you tell survival movies are starting to drive me insane? Maybe I’ve just seen enough of them already. My wife and I were discussing survival movies after watching The Grey and we could not think of a single survival movie that you would ever want to watch again, not one. There are movies you might want to watch again which have survival elements in them – Mountains of the Moon and The Killing Fields spring to mind, and there are others – but in terms of pure survival movies, they are (let’s face it) really boring, largely because in a survival situation, there’s not a lot to talk about … except dying, of course.

I like Liam Neeson as much as anybody, now that he has shed his “drip” persona and emerged late in life as the most likable, kick-ass action hero of all time. And he does work some magic in this movie – it would be completely unwatchable without him. An example: the members of the group – all laborers in some remote shit-hole in Alaska – are wondering why he knows so much about wolves. He replies “I’m paid to shoot those things … so you can live.” That’s a God-awful line if I’ve ever heard one, but Neeson makes it sound almost like something someone might actually say! I’m starting to think there no line, no matter how horrible, that this guy can’t pull off. But unfortunately Mr. Neeson’s greater talents and attributes are wasted in this film. Similarly, it’s really nice to see Dallas Roberts get some work, but he too is (for the most part) wasted. Everyone else is pretty much a cardboard placeholder.

The whole thing is basically a grim waste of time, with lots of blood, internal organs, violent death, cursing, crying, and despair. Sound like a good time to you??? Then have at it! For my part, I simply can’t stand this kind of shit anymore.

2012 – we’re off to an inauspicious start.