I Feel Like The Grey (2012) Gets Hated for Unfair Reasons

*I originally addressed some of this in a review of the film. However, I also made a very long post on a forum, and expanded my thoughts. I'm going to post it here as well and categorize it as a rant.*

**Note: This Will Contain Spoilers for The Grey and Inception as I Reference Both of Those Films Here**

Before I start, I don't think that I can make a TL;DR. I don't think that I can really summarize my thoughts on this issue. If you don't like reading long posts, turn away now because I'm not going to shorten this post just because its too long for you. Conforming to others expectations isn't my style.

Before I reviewed this movie, all of my reviews were just 1 paragraph. After I read much of the complaints for this film, however, I had to go into depth. Ever since then, all of my reviews now consist of several paragraphs. I'm posting this because I strongly disagree with the main arguments people are bringing up for why they dislike this movie and I'm going to state why I disagree with them.

"The way this movie portrayed wolves was very unrealistic. Wolves don't really act like how this movie portrayed them."

This is by far the most common complaint I hear for this movie. When I see a negative user review for this film, I see this complaint brought up 9 times out of 10. I admit that this movie is unrealistic. The way the wolves behave aren't correct. However, I think that point is invalid. Keep in mind that this is just a work of fiction. It's not a documentary from the discovery channel. As long as it's not pretending to be 100% accurate, I see no problem with it.

Also, I also feel that the argument has a bit of hypocrisy to it. Let me explain. Take the movie Jaws. In real life, sharks don't kill as many people as possible. But, when I look at reviews of Jaws, I don't see people complaining about the accuracy. Both of these movies have flaws about a type of animal yet only this movie receives hate. I don't get that. You can't call out this movie for being unrealistic and ignore it when Jaws does it. If you look at my profile then you would see that I gave Jaws a 10/10 so obviously suspension of disbelief didn't affect my review of that movie. I'm also going to ignore the errors for this review because it really didn't bother me that much.

"I really dislike that the movie ended before we got to find out whether or not Liam Neeson survived or not."

I can actually understand why someone would be upset about this and this is understandable to some extent. Besides, ambiguity is not for everyone. But again, I see some hypocrisy in that as well. Take the ending of the 2010 movie "Inception". In the end, it appears that Dom is going to be reunited with his kids but the last shot shows the spinning top and it doesn't show us whether he woke up or is still dreaming. The movie cut out but no one complained that the movie didn't show us the ending. Everyone seemed to be okay with it. My point is that you can't complain about this movie's ending and ignore it when "Inception" and other movies have ambiguous endings. I like endings with ambiguity so I enjoyed this movie's ending. If you didn't then fine. Just don't let other movies get free passes.

However, what many don't know about is the short scene that plays after the credits. After the credits, we do get to see the outcome of the fight. We see Liam and the wolf both laying on the ground. We see the wolf breathing out possibly signifying that it died.

There are several possible outcomes to what happened at the end so I'll give you a breakdown of some instances of what could have possibly happened.

a) The wolf killed Liam Neeson but it was gravely injured in the process so it was breathing its last breath.

b) The wolf killed Liam Neeson and it was catching its breath and/or regaining its energy so it could get up and eat him.

c) Liam Neeson gravely injured the wolf but he realized that he was gravely injured so he decided to rest with the wolf so they could both die together.

d) Liam Neeson killed the wolf and he was resting with it waiting for it to die. After it would die, he would get up and continue to try and make it back to safety. If this is what happened, it is unknown whether or not Neeson survived or was killed later.

* There are many other possible interpretations you may have for the ending but these 4 should be enough to get you thinking.

"Liam Neeson is supposed to be a survival expert but as soon as he took control, people started dying one by one."

What many people don't realize is that he wasn't the one who caused all their deaths though.

The first guy died because he was gravely injured and there was nothing any of them could do for him.

The second guy died because he left late at night and he was attacked. He didn't scream so the other survivors couldn't hear and help him.

The third guy died because he didn't keep up with the group and was eaten. They tried to get back to him but they were unable to. You could argue with this by saying that Liam Neeson should've looked back every now and then to make sure that nobody was falling behind. However, I have 2 counter arguments for this statement.

1) He appeared to be in good health before they hiked out so Neeson could've assumed that he would do fine based on his well physical and mental condition.

2) There was a huge blizzard going on as they were leaving. All of the characters were pretty far away from each other so maybe he couldn't see him falling behind in the cold weather through the snowfall.

You can also argue with this statement by saying that Liam Neeson should've heard him calling for help and he should've looked back. However, remember that snowstorms can muffle sound very easily. Neeson was pretty far away from him so he probably couldn't hear him.

You could also argue with this statement by saying that the 5th guy in line should've been able to hear him but he wasn't a survival expert so maybe he was just ignoring him because he thought it was nothing. He possibly could not have known that he should've taken his cries seriously.

The fourth guy died because he was suffering from hypoxia (a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply) and none of them could do anything about it because they were stuck up on the mountain.

The fifth guy died because he took too long when trying to climb across to the other side of the trees and his foot got stuck on the line which eventually caused it to snap and he fell to his death.

The sixth guy died because he refused to continue walking after he injured his leg. The 2 remaining survivors tried to convince him to keep going but he wouldn't budge and they were forced to leave him.

The seventh guy died because he jumped in a river to escape the wolves, got his foot stuck, and drowned. Neeson tried to pull him loose but he was unable to do so.

Neeson didn't cause any of their deaths. Therefore, that point is invalid.

Stepping away from the counter arguments for a second, I want to address why I think this film is so good and why I think that no negative reviews which give this movie a 1.5/5 or lower are justified.

It's because of the emotional resonance and philosophical agenda.

Firstly, I want to talk about the emotional resonance. We kept on seeing glimpses of a woman and Liam in bed. The woman kept saying inspirational quotes like "Don't be afraid". He also said in the beginning that he can't be with her because she left him. When he said that, I assumed they divorced and he missed her. But at the end, it shows that she was in a hospital bed and she died of a terminal illness. This is a very powerful scene because every time I re-watch this movie, I always get chills when I see Neeson dreaming of her resting with him in bed seconds before the plane crashes. He has probably been through a lot of stress (considering that he almost shot himself at the beginning of the movie) and now his life is going to be at stake.

Now, I'm going to talk about the philosophical points. There's that one quote on the picture which read:

"Once more into the Fray...
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day...
Live and die on this day..."

This has a lot of meaning to it and it sums up the movie. It means that every single one of us no matter who or where we are will have only one day, that upon which we will both live and die. It's up to us what we choose to do while we live on that day, but death will find us regardless. How does this tie into the ending?

Liam Neeson does an excellent job of conveying so much. Everything about this moment, where he carried the emotional weight and legacy of all those men (symbolized in their wallets) and he was willing to fight vicariously for them, against this literal and metaphorical beast before him, embodies the traits of a man. The willingness to face adversity; the will to press on with life, despite its numerous vicissitudes, is life's ultimate purpose. There is no goal at the end of this. It's the struggle that imbues life with meaning and significance. I really love that scene.

I gave this movie a 8/10. There were only 2 things which I didn't like about it.

I cared a lot about Liam Neeson's character because of the ending. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about all the other men. At the end, we saw their wallets and we found out that they had families and that was supposed to make us care for them. However, the scene happens in the final few minutes and the movie didn't give me enough time to make any real connections with them in those few minutes. I think that it should've introduced that early on in the film shortly after their plane crashed and talked about it a couple other times in the middle. It would make all of them to be well-developed characters.

Also, this movie has a ton of swearing. It's rare for this to be a flaw in a movie. However, I felt like the movie was forcing a lot of the curse words into it and much of them felt very unnecessary. It took me out of a few parts.

Despite this, I really love this film and I think that all of the people giving it low scores need to read what I said and watch it again with a more open eye. The metaphors, symbolism, and emotional resonance aren't found in much movies nowadays and it felt very refreshing to see the movie use them in such an original and creative manner. I really dislike how many reviewers on this site either disregard this or are completely unaware of its deeper meaning altogether. If its emotional resonance and philosophical agenda doesn't appeal to you then that's okay. However, you should address these aspects to the film in your review, and if you do dislike its deeper meaning, explain why.

Anyways, how do you think I did on this forum post? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Would you like to say something else that I haven't said? I'll like to see different viewpoints on my arguments and this film. Thank you for taking your time to read this.