Sunday, February 12, 2012

Weekly Round-Up (2/5/12 - 2/11/12)

The Grey (Joe Carnahan) *** - A plane carrying a group of oil drillers in Alaska crashes and a small group of survivors must survive the elements and a pack of killer wolves. What seems like a typical action-adventure survival story is actually a very interesting, complex meditation on deeper spiritual and religious issues surrounding life, death and the brutality of nature. Liam Neeson delivers one of his best performances in a long, long time in this one after seemingly put on autopilot kicking people's asses in B-action movies the last couple of years. It's not a perfect film but one of the more interesting films so far this season.

The Woman in Black (James Watkins) **1/2 - This is a British ghost story produced by Hammer Films and it's very much reminiscent of creepy haunted house films like The Haunted (the original one) and The Innocents. The film is nowhere near as great as those aforementioned films but is a passable enough entry to the genre with a few good atmospheric scares. Daniel Radcliffe acquits himself well in his first role playing an adult although I did have a bit of trouble buying him as a widowed lawyer even with the stubble. All in all, far from horrible but also far from the best of the genre.

8 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

Thanks for the heads up, Liam Neeson is one of my favourites and poor Radcliffe is associated with that franchise forever I'm afraid.....

Mark said...

A Hammer movie that's not great? Though I do like how Daniel is trying to get away from Potter but I don't know how well it's going to go. It didn't go so well when he tried the stage.

Outcast said...

I've heard the latter film featuring Radcliffe just isn't all that good which is a real shame, he should have picked a far better post-Potter role to open with in all honesty.

Bart said...

liam neeson trained batman. /thread.

G said...

I need to take the wife to the Woman in Black she never shuts up about it...but Radcliff is an immediate turn off for me

Anonymous said...

I really want to watch The Woman in Black, I find it really hard to disassociate Harry Potter and Radcliffe, it's practically burnt into our minds at this point.

MRanthrope said...

you confirmed what others have already told me, that The Grey rules.

Crack You Whip said...

Gotta go see The Grey now! Thanks!