Despite the fact he's approaching his 60th birthday, Liam Neeson has more oomph in a fart than the Stathams/Hemsworths of this world do in any punch, something Hollywood seems to have recently caught onto. So, fresh from singlehandedly taking out 35 prozzie peddlers in Taken, here he is battling a faulting jet engine, snow and WOLVES in The Grey.

The reunion of The A Team's Joe Carnahan, Ridley & Tony Scott, and Liam Neeson is made just a little bit more beautiful by Masanobu Takayanagi's photography, which ultimately puts the landscape into the lead with the excellent support of Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, James Badge Dale and Joe Anderson. This motley crew form a group of oil drillers in Alaska whose plane crashes in the wilderness on their flight home. DO NOT watch this scene if you have a fear of flying (FYI, it turns out the 'brace' position is about as useful pressing the call button) - you'll piss your pants before check in.

Neeson's Ottway has already described the group as "men unfit for mankind" and he's suicidal himself, so it initially seems like a bit of a dreary purgatory situation. When the bickering starts, Wilson the friendly volley ball seems like good company and a self-referential mention of Alive makes us wonder if we might have seen it all before. That is until a pack of wolves arrive on the scene. These animals represent the exact opposite of War Horse - angry and hell bent on destroying the crew, possibly due to their own misrepresentation (we're pretty sure they're called 'gray' wolves). Anyway, rather handily, Ottaway is an expert on wolf behaviour so he has soon put all thought of killing himself aside to save the gang - yeah!

Now, if you've seen the trailer, you'll have seen the scene where Neeson straps miniature bottles of whisky between his knuckles to make a makeshift dead dog fist. As awesome as this might be, it doesn't give a full indication of the pace of The Grey. Sure, you get your fair share of Man vs Wolf battles, but the survival tale goes deeper than action. It's a slow burners, a bit like Neeson himself. There's something almost Deliverance about the journey - no man's downfall is purely for screen gore, they makes us feel sad. A series of flashbacks are a slightly unnecessary tool to bring a more human side to the characters (they're being pitted against wolves, isn't that enough?), while the freezing conditions automatically make us sympathetic towards to cast (Neeson said it was so cold his piss froze - eek). Seriously, Even Bear Grylls couldn't hack this. 

The ending will leave audiences hung. No spoilers, but, very important, make sure you stay for the entire closing credits. There's one last scene. It will leave you hungrier than a rabid wolf, but you must stay put until the very end. What happens? Does Neeson end up in a post-coital with the Alpha of the pack? We couldn't possibly say.