Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Nature fights back in Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter, a vaguely supernatural cautionary tale of of environmentalists and oil workers besieged by some unseen forces in the great north. Fessenden also brought us Wendigo back in the day, another snowbound chiller, and a keen sense of the eerie corners of the natural world and it's unexplored areas comes built in with his skill set. Ron Perlman doggedly plays Ed, the headstrong leader of a research party scouting arctic land for Big Oil to plant an ice road and pipeline. Connie Britton is his second in command and former flame, now shacking up with wildlife journalist James Legros. When the dead, naked body of a team member is found near their camp, natural gas emissions from the ground are suspected (so logical, guys). Yet, people continue to die, and some ominous presence gathers in the night just outside the perimeter of the station, inciting rising dread and distrust among the team and claiming victims with gathering speed. It's fun to watch Perlman slowly come unraveled, his grim sense of control slipping away as quickly as his rational explanations for what is happening. We never get a good look at whatever is out there, which is the smart way to go about your horror. The snow boils, strange sounds are heard and the natural world itself almost seems to be taking on angry life of it's own. It's obviously meant as a metaphor, but works just as well as a literal creature feature thanks to the sleek direction and well placed moments of chilly terror. Shades of The Thing, infused with this theme of the earth lashing out at the arrogance of human industrialization is a delicious flavour indeed.

devilmadeson The Last Winter seems to be a conscious update of Peter Weir's The Last Wave, both with themes of humans cracking under the strain of an environmental crisis. This doesn't cover substantially new territory, but succeeds in an atmosphere of dread, and events that leave you guessing: is the crew suffering from gas exposure? Hallucinations? Is a dark spirit from the Inuit mythology to blame? LW does a nice job of balancing these possibilities, letting you be the judge. Ron Perlman is good as the gruff, by the book boss who looks after his crew, James LeGros is a very serious environmentalist who is no more ready than the others for events that defy his rational mind, and several of the other characters, while needing a bit more depth, do good work with what they have. The film has been criticized for a rather vague ending, usually from the people who always want a big rubbery monster to show up and then get conveniently killed, resolving everything in an instantly forgettable climax. But, if you care to exercise that brain behind your eyes, you may find the questions of Last Winter lingering long after explosions and FX are forgotten.

capkronos I've never really understood why the concept of environmentalism rubs so many out there the wrong way, especially when it concerns the search for oil. We all know that oil is a non-renewable resource. We know it isn't going to last forever. We know that the pursuit of it has led not only to vast environmental damage, but also numerous wars and countless deaths. And most of us realize that some time in the near future we are going to have to adapt to using an alternate fuel source whether we like it or not. But for some unknown reason, we refuse to move forward. We won't be satisfied until every single inch of the Earth has been drilled and every single drop of oil is used up. We could care less what's being done to the Earth, our atmosphere or our fellow man as long as we have reasonably priced gas to fuel our vehicles.Environmental concerns seem to split people right down the middle, at least here in the U.S. You have those who side with oil companies and feel there is no reason to change, at least not right now. These people typically encourage drilling wherever there is oil (regardless of whether or not it's a federally protected nature preserve or park) and view those opposed to this as being paranoid "tree huggers" and anti-capitalist. The other side seems to want to cut our dependence on oil (both foreign and domestic) and go ahead and start implementing an alternate fuel source immediately. The same split between the population can be seen for issues of global warming/climate change. There are those who believe it's needless paranoia with no solid scientific data to back it up, while others believe there's either enough evidence on hand to be concerned and ultimately we're better off being safe than sorry. And all shades of gray in between, I'm sure.The above issues are what fuel this movie. We really don't know for sure what the extent of our damage will be when all is said and done. We also don't know what interesting ways mother nature may react to what we are doing...The film is set in Northern Alaska at the remote site of a future oil drilling installation. Ron Perlman plays Ed Pollack, who represents the corporate side of the fight; a man excited about the prospect of a huge untapped oil reserve located within a wildlife sanctuary. Jim (played by James Le Gros) represents the other side of the struggle; an environmentalist who worries about the damage being done. His concerns are brushed off by Ed and most of the others until strange events begin occurring. The group seem to have unleashed either a supernatural force or some type of hallucinogenic toxic gas that leads to paranoia, madness and murder.Director/producer/co-writer Larry Fessenden (HABIT, WENDIGO) does an excellent job exploiting the desolate snowy landscape and sense of icy isolation in a way comparable to Carpenter's THE THING. For the first hour he also does a good job keeping the threat obscured and dealing with our fear of the unknown. We have no idea whether we're dealing with something supernatural or natural (which may be one in the same, actually). The production values, cinematography and music are all good, as is the dialogue and acting.Unfortunately, I felt the entire film was undermined by several wrong turns along the way. Blast it! Through some typically lame CGI, the off-screen menace is finally visualized as big, stealthy, silly-looking dinosaur/ moose hybrids (wendigos?). If we were able to fall back on the toxic gas scenario, with the monsters simply being hallucinations, this might have been forgivable. However, several occurrences - strange animal footprints seen in the snow, a plague of crows feasting on corpses, video evidence of the creatures, etc. - do no allow us to draw that conclusion. If the filmmakers had kept this more ambiguous and let we, the viewers, decide for ourselves, I'd probably consider this one of the better horror films of the decade. As is, it's an interesting, well-made, well-meaning film with a good concept, but they failed to pull it all together at the end.Still, this one did make me think. And I'm still thinking about it a few hours after watching it, which is - to me - always a good thing.

Roland E. Zwick If you've ever wondered what the cast of TV's "Friday Night Lights" were up to before they hit pay dirt with that wonderful series, check out "The Last Winter," where you can see no fewer than two of them - Connie Britton and Zach Gilford - fighting forces of evil together in a single film. Here they play employees of an energy firm that has sent a small team, headed by Ron Perlman, to the Arctic Circle to pump out the oil that lies beneath the newly-melting permafrost. James LeGros is a cocky environmentalist who keeps trying to convince everyone that something "not quite right" is happening to the climate in the area, but none of the "drill, baby, drill" types seem to want to listen. Yet, soon a mad-as-hell Mother Nature is taking matters into her own hands and, before you know it, rain is falling in February, the ice is breaking under the workers' feet, the equipment is malfunctioning, crows are circling the premises, planes are dropping out of the sky, people's noses are bleeding for no apparent reason, one man has wandered off into the wilderness stark naked, a mysterious creature is lurking around the base, and a strange form of madness has begun to settle in over the employees.There's really not a whole lot to say about "The Last Winter" - which has been directed, edited and co-written by Larry Fessenden - except that this cautionary-tale about the dangers of global warming is long on exposition and short on credibility and suspense. And, oh yes, the climax is really, really cheesy.It's nice to see Britton and Gilford outside the confines of Dylan, Texas for a change, but this low-grade mishmash of climate-change speculation and Inuit folklore - think of it as "The Thing" meets "An Inconvenient Truth" - has precious little else to recommend it.