Liam Neeson

The title "8 Million Ways to Die" was already taken, so "The Grey" had to settle for "The Grey," named for the plus-size wolves waging war on the desperate human survivors of an Alaskan wilderness plane crash. Tough situation. Frostbite. Wolf bite. Drowning. Falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes abound for man and beast. And yet the film takes some time to let its characters ruminate, by way of dialogue, on their circumstances, which gives "The Grey" a distinctly late 20th century feel.

Did the ancient Greeks think in terms of sequels? The ongoing adventures of their mythological gods certainly lend themselves easily to serialized entertainment. And so following the box-office success of 2010's "Clash of the Titans" comes the more-of-the-same sequel "Wrath of the Titans. " Directed this time out by Jonathan Liebesman, the film lacks inspiration or zest in storytelling, performance or action. This is pure product, a movie desperately without energy or enthusiasm of any kind.

The brawls in the Liam Neeson actioner "Taken" are downright Hobbesian: nasty, brutish and short. "In real life, fights are very short," said fight choreographer Olivier Schneider. "What I wanted was not to show something beautiful but something realistic and very powerful. You don't have time to pose." Neeson's character, a former spy, employs a mix of Chinese and Indonesian martial arts in an ultra-aggressive, no-nonsense approach to conflict resolution.

I don't know exactly when Liam Neeson turned into Hollywood's favorite vengeance machine - the go-to guy for settling scores - but he has definitely arrived with an emotionally gripping performance in the current box-office hit "The Grey. " Surely "Taken" in 2009 , with his ex-CIA operative in a relentless and ruthless bid to find his kidnapped daughter, signaled that he had made the A-team. And in 2010, he would actually join a re-imagined "A-Team" as its tactical leader, Hannibal, with all the historic resonance that name implies.

In the opening scenes of "The Grey,"the new film opening in theaters Friday, Liam Neeson's character explains in a letter to his dead wife that the dull ache of his grief has taken him to the frigid ends of the earth and put him in the company of desperate and empty men. It's difficult to watch Neeson trudge through snow and heartache at the start of the film and not think about the actor's own ordeals - it will be three years ago this March that...

I don't know exactly when Liam Neeson turned into Hollywood's favorite vengeance machine - the go-to guy for settling scores - but he has definitely arrived with an emotionally gripping performance in the current box-office hit "The Grey. " Surely "Taken" in 2009 , with his ex-CIA operative in a relentless and ruthless bid to find his kidnapped daughter, signaled that he had made the A-team. And in 2010, he would actually join a re-imagined "A-Team" as its tactical leader, Hannibal, with all the historic resonance that name implies.

"Unknown" is a nifty international thriller of the "what if?" variety. What if you came out of a coma after a car accident to find that no one knew you? Or, even worse, that someone had pilfered your identity, and everyone you thought you knew, especially your wife, insisted that that other person was you. Now an ordinary individual might have trouble in that situation, but "Unknown" doesn't have anyone average as the beleaguered biologist Martin Harris ? it has Liam Neeson, the star of "Taken" and one of the most naturally forceful actors on the contemporary scene.

To his divorced wife and estranged 17-year-old daughter, Bryan Mills is Mr. Worry Wart. Propose an idyllic summer vacation in Paris for the little miss and all he can do is whine about the risk and worry that "you have no idea what the world is like." Telling him not to fret, he says, is "like telling water not to be wet." It turns out, however, that Bryan Mills has his reasons.

Did the ancient Greeks think in terms of sequels? The ongoing adventures of their mythological gods certainly lend themselves easily to serialized entertainment. And so following the box-office success of 2010's "Clash of the Titans" comes the more-of-the-same sequel "Wrath of the Titans. " Directed this time out by Jonathan Liebesman, the film lacks inspiration or zest in storytelling, performance or action. This is pure product, a movie desperately without energy or enthusiasm of any kind.

In his 30-year career as an actor, Liam Neeson has played his share of priests, rogue Irishmen and sexy professors. He earned an Oscar nomination in 1994 for his portrayal of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and, more recently, loaned his unmistakable baritone to Aslan the lion in "The Chronicles of Narnia" series. Though he's played killers and sea captains, Neeson always seemed to underplay his formidable physicality.

The title "8 Million Ways to Die" was already taken, so "The Grey" had to settle for "The Grey," named for the plus-size wolves waging war on the desperate human survivors of an Alaskan wilderness plane crash. Tough situation. Frostbite. Wolf bite. Drowning. Falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes abound for man and beast. And yet the film takes some time to let its characters ruminate, by way of dialogue, on their circumstances, which gives "The Grey" a distinctly late 20th century feel.

Liam Neeson's new action-adventure thriller looks to have the edge on what is likely to be a crowded movie weekend without a breakout hit. "The Grey,"starring Neeson, probably will take in $12 million to $14 million, according to people who have seen pre-release audience surveys. That should be good enough to beat two other new offerings, crime comedy "One for the Money,"starring Katherine Heigl, and thriller "Man on a Ledge," headlined by Sam Worthington. Both are expected to have soft openings of less than $10 million.

In the opening scenes of "The Grey,"the new film opening in theaters Friday, Liam Neeson's character explains in a letter to his dead wife that the dull ache of his grief has taken him to the frigid ends of the earth and put him in the company of desperate and empty men. It's difficult to watch Neeson trudge through snow and heartache at the start of the film and not think about the actor's own ordeals - it will be three years ago this March that...

Like the comedy in his movies, Todd Phillips is unapologetic. The director of Thursday's "The Hangover Part II" and its preceding blockbuster has made a mint at the box office by leading his characters to the cliffs of irredeemable iniquity, dangling them over the precipice, then reeling them back to safety just before they plunge into the abyss. The men in Phillips' movies have trafficked with hookers, consumed perilous quantities of drugs and alcohol, placed children in peril — and along the way attracted a broad swath of the moviegoing public, not simply the young males who storm theaters showing R-rated raunch.

SERIES Break It Down: The new episode "Yankee Stadium" chronicles the demolition of the fabled Bronx ballpark, which was replaced by a new stadium in 2009 (7 and 10 p.m. National Geographic). The Big Bang Theory: Priya (Aarti Mann) reviews Sheldon and Leonard's (Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki) roommate agreement with her lawyer's eye in this new episode (8 p.m. CBS). American Idol: The results show features performances by former contestant Crystal Bowersox and Bruno Mars (8 p.m. Fox)

"Unknown" is a nifty international thriller of the "what if?" variety. What if you came out of a coma after a car accident to find that no one knew you? Or, even worse, that someone had pilfered your identity, and everyone you thought you knew, especially your wife, insisted that that other person was you. Now an ordinary individual might have trouble in that situation, but "Unknown" doesn't have anyone average as the beleaguered biologist Martin Harris ? it has Liam Neeson, the star of "Taken" and one of the most naturally forceful actors on the contemporary scene.

Most stars look smaller in real life. Liam Neeson, the robust Oskar Schindler of "Schindler's List" and fiery Rob Roy of "Rob Roy," is no exception. Seated stiffly in a director's chair in his office on the West Side of Manhattan--he's just driven in from the country, having dropped off his two kids in another part of the building--he looks neither robust nor fiery. He looks thin. The irony is that his on-screen appearance is closer to what he normally looks like. Neeson has been very sick.

For four decades, filmmakers have been intrigued by the idea of committing the life story of Irish republican hero Michael Collins to the big screen. The legendary directors John Ford and John Huston--two men with Irish blood coursing through their veins--toyed with the idea. Robert Redford considered making a Collins movie. In the 1980s, Michael Cimino and Kevin Costner separately visited Ireland to eye locations, armed with drafts of scripts based on Collins' life.

The afterlife in "After.Life" is deadly. Really.Deadly. It's where the not-quite dead exist before they finally cease to, specifically a cold back room in a ghastly funeral home somewhere in the Midwest. According to "After.Life," which stars Christina Ricci and Liam Neeson, it takes a human being about four days to stop being, depending on scheduling and how long the undertaker wants to chat. The afterlife is not, however, nearly as deadly or as ghastly as the movie itself, an undertaking so tortured that it digs a deeper grave with every passing scene.

Despite its respected cast, accomplished director and distinguished source author, "The Other Man" is, at best, a minor work. That's not to say this atypical hybrid of romantic melodrama and twisty thriller should be avoided; there are several effective surprises and intellectual pleasures to be had here. But approaching the film with, let's say, lowered expectations may go a long way toward appreciating what it attempts, as well as what it achieves. Based on a short story by German writer Bernhard Schlink, who also penned the novel on which last year's excellent "The Reader" was based, "The Other Man" stars an especially sober Liam Neeson as Peter, a successful computer software executive long married to Lisa (Laura Linney)