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USA 2009
Director: Richard Harrah
Cast: Eion Bailey, Yvonne Strahovski, Will Patton, Wendy Worthington, Andrea Marcellus
Rating: R
Release Date: 23 October 2009
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
The Movie Review
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| The CANYON |
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There are many criticisms intently circling around and picking out the flaws of this movie. While I can't say this is a horrible movie because that would be just wrong, The Canyon though was indeed a product of first-timer director and screenwriter, so with some flaws here and there are to be expected. But, I know for general moviegoers the case of directorial debut or writing debut is none of their concerns and mainly they are expecting something good when renting the movie, so let's find out more about The Canyon.
Newlyweds Nick Conway (Eion Bailey) and Yvonne Strahovski (Lori Conway) are spending their holiday wanting to take on Mule Rides in Grand Canyon. Arriving on a small town called Williams in Arizona which serves as a gate to Grand Canyon, this couple is let down by the fact that they need a permit to go there, and it's already too late to make one.
Friday night, Nick and Lori are just kicking out in a local bar regretting their cluelessness over the permit when suddenly a friendly husky man with machete which poses a look of a mountain man named Henry (Will Patton), offering them for a mule ride to Grand Canyon. Psyched over this opportunity of a life time (as Nick puts it), Lori is playing a good wife by agreeing to anything he says. But this time, Lori should've been more assertive of her thoughts, because this trip will be a survival and Grand Canyon will proof to be not for everybody. What will happen to this honeymooning couple in this vast famous canyon?
The Canyon is one of the nature vs human horror thriller subgenre and it's exciting for picturing how merciless Grand Canyon could be. It's too bad that it wasn't shot on the real site of Grand Canyon but in Moab, Utah, but still the cinematography is one of this film best traits and the shot where Nick and Lori are seen entering the canyon looks like it's shot in the real Grand Canyon. But being a thriller adventure film surely the writer has to deliver another chill in the aspect of survival. There is no serial killer here as The Canyon is all about Men Vs. Nature, so that also which means the quality of the movie depends a lot on the acting capacity of the three cast. No one is a miscast, Will Patton is convincing as usual, Eion Bailey's portrayal of Nick is great but the main credits should definitely go to Yvonne Strahovski which carries the movie mostly on her own. Great acting from all three but too darn bad the chemistry between the couple is not very good.
The biggest concern of the movie is how stupid and reckless these newlyweds are going into a place so gigantic like that with a drunkard as their guide? But probably to the writer's defense, these are couple madly in love who's just recently got married in Vegas and going straight away to Williams for a honeymoon. Some people sometimes make stupid decision out of emotion and I guess The Canyon gives you something to think about in case you're planning to do the same :) You can get easily lost in this canyon where everything is just rocks and when something unexpectedly horrible might happen to their guide/human compass. The scenes with wolves, rattlesnakes and/or canyon-related material are good as a thriller and one scene involving foot would really make you cringe! The Canyon does not exploit nudity or goriness, but it does well in the drama, unfortunately, the ending would proof to be such such sad one.
In fact, had the ending be different or articulated more deeply, it would be a very pleasant movie. Aside from such obvious illogic fact that Nick and Lori could survive for several days and have such strength without drinking any water at all..., I guess the reasons why some viewers hate The Canyon is because they're expecting The Canyon to be some kind of The Hills Have Eyes (1977) perhaps? It's not, and being different doesn't mean it's bad, you just have to know what it's all about. And for what The Canyon concerns, it's a pretty decent flick.
> Man Vs. Nature Movies based on Gripping Real Life Stories: Open Water (2003), Touching the Void (2003), and 127 Hours (2010).
> Awesome Survival Movies with only 3 actors!: Wolf Creek (2005), Black Water (2007) and Frozen (2010).
© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Sunday, 20 November 2011 08:13 am
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