What do you get when you combine a bear, a man that may or may not want to kill another for his wife, and an entrapanuer with a seemingly infinite wealth of knowledge? Ask me that a month ago and I'd say that I wouldn't see a movie with that plotline if you paid me. But after a barrage of good advertising and even better hype, I decided that I'd go see it.
What a surprise.
The movie starts slow, but with that kind of unwritten tension in the air that only a good writer can accomplish. It picks up speed quickly, spending maybe half an hour on the intro and character development to the final crash (due to an in-air collision with a flock of birds) which kills the pilot and leaves Harold Perrineau ("Oz"), Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins alive to fend in the wilderness with a knife and six matches.
Things would go better except for the fact that there is a Kodaik bear, a mankiller who is stocking them, giving off all of the personality of a psychopath and making us hate him as much as we could hate any human villan.
Though the plot is completely made of old movies, this is one that is done so well that it surpasses any old no-tech thriller that I've ever seen. It goes into the realm of movies that are made good but have tremendous potential to be bad. It's worth seeing any day of the week.