There's a moment early on in "Men in Black 3" when Will Smith's Agent J sits down next to his longtime partner, Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K, and bemoans the fact that he's too old for this sort of thing — for running around New York in matching"The Grey" — After the thrillers "Taken" and "Unknown," Liam Neeson is back in his new genre of choice, looking quite at home punching a wolf. As the grizzled, morose sniper John Ottway, he's among a roughneck band of Alaskan oil refinery workers who, while being shuttled by plane to Anchorage for vacation, crash violently in a storm, stranding them in the snowy tundra. Ottway, the alpha dog, takes charge among the seven survivors (among them Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts and, most memorably, Frank Grillo) whose predicament severely worsens when a pack of wolves announce themselves by their eerie, glowing eyes on the dark fringes of their campfire. Director Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team," ''Narc"), adapting a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, sends their dwindling numbers on a survivalist adventure that grows increasingly bleak and existential. In manly, fireside chats, they parse out philosophical ideas, talking God in a wintery void, faced with the cruel brutality of nature. But "The Grey" is not "Jaws" and it's certainly not "Moby-Dick." In ambling toward an unconventional ending, its musings aren't as sure-handed as its action sequences. Ultimately, it feels less like a genuine existential thriller than a movie aping the conventions of one. R for violence, disturbing content including bloody images, and for pervasive language. 117 minutes. Two stars out of four.
— Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer
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"Man on a Ledge" — This so-called thriller about a disgraced cop who threatens to jump off a building to divert attention from a heist going on across the street isn't even implausible in a fun way. You see a movie like "Ocean's 11" or "Tower Heist" (which is thematically similar to this with its wily have-nots stealing from the filthy-rich haves) and you suspend some disbelief because they have an irresistible, knowingly giddy energy about them. "Man on a Ledge" is so cliched and reheated, it almost feels like a parody of a generic action picture — only no one seems to be in on the joke. Director Asger Leth's film plods along with its trash-talking New York cops and its forensic evidence and its elaborate surveillance systems. Every few minutes, a new star you recognize shows up: Edward Burns, Elizabeth Banks, Kyra Sedgwick, Ed Harris. At the center is a bland Sam Worthington doing a horrible job of disguising his Australian accent. He stars as Nick Cassidy, a fugitive who insists he was wrongly imprisoned for stealing a $40 million diamond from Harris' reptilian real-estate tycoon. As Nick teeters along a ledge on the 21st floor of the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, stalling for time while toying with Banks as a scarred police negotiator, Nick's brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey's stereotypically saucy Latina girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are trying to pull off a real burglary across the street. PG-13 for violence and brief strong language. 102 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
— Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
