The Canyon

I went into this movie with certain expectations. The expectations were met. There are no real surprises in this movie. Early in the movie, you know the set-up, man (and woman) against nature. All of the main players are likable. Their character is developed. You care about these people! The scenery is beautiful. There are plot contrivances, like shoddy cellphone coverage and random injuries. Of course, there has to be poor cellphone coverage or there would be no movie! You would just call for help and that would be the end of the movie! There has to be injuries to add insult to "injury" to the players struggling against the odds already. The ending is truly thought evoking instead of cliché. It could not have ended better. I recently saw the movie "Thirst." The two movies are very similar in plot line. This movie was enjoyable. I found "Thirst" tedious and overly predictable.

I'm not gonna say much. What struck me and really disappointed, which flavored the whole film, is how stupid they were to not stay put and find the mules. Idiots.

Plot: The possibilities of getting lost in the Grand Canyon escalate dramatically if you choose not to properly plan your trip into the canyon, use uncertified guides (esp with drinking problems), no wilderness survival training, no maps or compass, and have no way of communicating with the outside world. Having no food or water, lost in the canyon, under high heat conditions can alone kill you, much less the idea of wild animals attacking you? I must point out that idea about wolves in the Grand Canyon Park and outlying areas attacking people is totally absurd! Whoever thought this one up did not do much research because wolves, though they have been spotted in these areas on occasion, are for the most part rare and shy of humans. Timber wolves, which the movie portrays, mainly exist in Canada and the northwestern states towards Canada. So this part is completely unrealistic for an already busy plot. Wolves only act like this when they are starving to death, but the Timber wolves shown in this movie looked pretty well fed.

However this movie does make you think twice about roughing it alone out in no man's land. If you don't have the stomach to see what people have to do under desperate circumstances, then perhaps you need to look for another movie?

The wilderness can be a great place to visit, when everything is going okay. But introduce some unexpected problems, and an excellent adventure, far removed from other people, morphs into a nightmare. It's a story premise that has a long history in cinema, and it's the premise on which "The Canyon" is based. An attractive newlywed couple hires an old backwoods coot (played by Will Patton) to guide them through the back-country of the Grand Canyon. Everything goes well ... for awhile.

The script's characters seem credible. But the plot lacks creative imagination. One particular adversity propels the film's second half, which goes on and on, tediously. Either the editor needed to chop off some of the plot repetition, or the writer needed to introduce additional, more varied, adversities.

Further, the story's inciting incident, which involves a reptile, is not remotely credible. And the characters react to this event in ways that add to their misery. What would films be without characters who make stupid decisions?

Casting is acceptable. Acting is okay until near the end when one performance becomes almost laughable. Sound effects and background music are fine.

Scenery is spectacular, helped along by competent color cinematography. And the final scene is arguably the best scene in the entire film. As the camera zooms out, viewers get a stunning visual perspective, one of the best such perspectives I have ever seen in any film.

An unimaginative and at times silly plot renders the story somewhat tiresome and tedious. But this is partially offset by terrific visuals, the most impressive of which is right at the very end.

Basically, this is a mediocre movie. I was primarily led to watch it from comments that the setting was the Grand Canyon and that the cinematography was good. However, apart from a few shots of descending into the Grand Canyon, the rest of the story was actually filmed near Moab, Utah, and not in the Grand Canyon. The slot canyon in the movie was Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona (also not in Grand Canyon). There are slot canyons in Grand Canyon (such as Deer Creek and Matkatamiba) but they are a lot harder to get to for filming and are not seen in the movie.

Moab is certainly a beautiful place, but for those familiar with the territory it looks nothing like the Grand Canyon. It is understandable that the movie was filmed in Moab rather than in the Grand Canyon because Moab is much more accessible and filming there would be cheaper and easier on the personnel involved. But those expecting or wishing for a movie filmed in the Grand Canyon won't find it here.