What a way to start off the new year. January is notoriously known as a "dumping ground" for studios to release really bad movies (I.E. this year's "One For the Money" and "Man on a Ledge"), but this is one major exception.
The story starts off simply enough: some people who work in the wilderness of Alaska are going home. Ottway (Neeson), a wolf hunter for the drill company, is on the verge of killing himself the last night in Alaska when he hears the howls of wolves in the distance. He goes and hunts the wolf and doesn't kill himself.
While on the plane, there is an accident. The plane crashes in the middle of nowhere in one of the most intense and startling plane crashes in film history. There are only a handful of survivors and they have to struggle to stay alive as they fight against natural elements around them and a pack of wolves. The wolves are absolutely brutal to these poor survivors.
As a whole, this movie works. The characters become well-developed as they have to work together to stay alive. The acting is uniformly strong among the whole cast, especially Neeson, who carries to film on his shoulders. Although there are some cliches that are inevitable in almost every film now-a-days, this is a highly original, and often surprising, film. Not many movies make me actually sit on the edge of my seat and cringe or gasp in shock or horror. The film never really loses a sense of surprise regarding the deaths of the characters, except in one scene where it was obvious that somebody was going to die (it was still a frightening death).
**Spoilers ahead**
My biggest problem that lies in this film is the ending. I'm sure that many other people also had this problem (I know the people I was with did). It just ends. That's not even the worst part about it, the movie ends right before a fight between the last survive and the alpha wolf! There is one very short post-credit scene that shows the outcome, but how freaking awesome would it be to see Liam Neeson fighting a giant wolf! if this were added in the film, my rating would definitely be higher.
Final Rating: 8/10
