Into the Grizzly Maze (2015)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

From my favorite movies..

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This lot have to be the worst hunters on the planet. How hard can it be to shoot a big bear yet time and again they keep missing with a clear shot and also at point blank range too. Also this bear displays skills like a ninja the way it keeps sneaking up on people without being seen and disappearing into the shadows when it's in trouble. Trust me you'll be tearing your hair out at how annoying this movie is!

Ever so often you encounter one of those 'hidden pearls'. With those I mean movies you have never heard about before, which weren't hyped by the big marketing machine of Hollywood. This, in my most humble opinion, is truly one of them.I tell you honestly, I started watching this movie by the lack of something else to watch, but my oh my. This movie has left me hanging on the edge of my seat from the beginning to the end.The cinematography in this movie is truly magnificent. I guess the absolute stunning environment made that a bit easier. The action scenes are breath taking. Without spoiling anything, there were multiple moments in the movie that I myself truly felt as if I was being followed / hunted by a bear.I have no clue if there were real bears used for this movie or not, but if the case is that they were not, then I believe we have finally reached the point where CGI can't be distinguished from reality anymore. That bear was one big bad mother! The good part about this movie is that you understand both sides, or at least I did. You get people, who want to survive. You get the bear that ... well does what it does for the reason it does it, because I don't want to spoil anything.The movie has an awesome cast. This is one of those movies that has you pause it from time to time saying 'Hey I know him/her'. It has a lot of established names like James Marsden (cyclops from X-men), Thomas Jane (who I have loved since Deep Blue Sea), Scott Glenn (Backdraft) and of course BillyBob Thornton, although I had to literally pause the movie to check IMDb if I was seeing that correct.To me (and of course, to you it could be totally different), this was a breathtaking experience through everything this beautiful earth has to offer us (including nature, animals and love). And I truly, truly enjoyed it.

Into the Grizzly Maze (2015)* 1/2 (out of 4) Rowan (James Marsden) returns to his home where he soon finds himself inside the Grizzly Maze, a part of the woods where it's so confusing to get out that even Grizzly's can become lost. Also there is his brother (Thomas Jane) and soon they are battling a giant bear attacking people. Also on hand is a hunter (Billy Bob Thornton) who knows there's something not normal with this bear.INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE might seem like a movie you'd watch on the SyFy channel but you can rest easy that it's actually better made and features a higher budget than those movies. With that said, it really isn't any better because it has a pretty boring story and it's also hard to be scared of a bear when it's obvious that it's never in the same scene with the actors.I think a good movie could have been made here but GRIZZLY this isn't. The biggest problem with this movie is that it's just too boring to keep you interested in what's going on. What's worse is the non-stop bickering between the brothers and their entire backstory is just boring and adds nothing to the picture. Another problem is that none of the characters are all that interesting and that includes the hunter.The film does feature the cast doing nice work including Scott Gleen in the role of the sheriff. The performances are just fine and I'd argue that the ending is good but sadly everything else leading up to it just doesn't work. It's really too bad the film wasn't better as the "nature gone wild" genre needs a serious and good film.

This is one of, if not the worst movies I have ever seen. Never has a movie gotten me so angry that I was yelling at the screen. I was still angry just thinking about it the next day. Ridiculously useless characters and a bear that is apparently a ninja. The female characters are just there to be rescued, they serve no other purpose. Why is one of the girls deaf? It does not add anything substantial to the story, just makes her more of a damsel in distress to be rescued. This movie had a few really good actors that I really like, and it wasted them. Somehow the experienced hunter can't shoot a thirteen foot tall and four to five foot wide bear. There is a scene at the end of the movie where they are trying to escape onto the boat from the beach. Scott Glenns character has a gun and it gets knocked out of his hands by the bear and he gets attacked. Do the other characters grab the gun and help save him? No, they just stand there and yell at the bear instead and let his character get killed, because he is a bad guy, and all of the bad guys must die. Avoid this movie if you can, if you want to watch a bear attack movie, watch Backcountry instead, that is actually a really good movie.