Into the Grizzly Maze

In filmmaker David Hackl's Into the Grizzly Maze, ex-con Rowan (James Marsden) returns to his Alaskan boyhood hometown to search for a friend who has gone missing in the forest. Rowan immediately runs into trouble with the sheriff (Scott Glenn) and his deputy—Rowan's estranged brother Beckett (Thomas Jane)—but the three men must work together when a couple of loggers are killed by a rogue bear. The sheriff also enlists pretty medical examiner Kaley (Michaela McManus) and a hard-as-nails hunter (Billy Bob Thornton), who goes solo to track what he immediately recognizes as “the bear I've been waiting for all my life.” The situation is made even more desperate because Beckett's wife (Piper Perabo)—a deaf wildlife photographer—is out in the woods. Much of the story follows the various characters as they stumble around the wilderness, with cutaways to the bear as it lumbers through the foliage and growls. The finale goes for broke, pitting the remaining cast against the bear in a confrontation that includes multiple (and increasingly ludicrous) escapes from the animal's jaws and claws (as well as reappearances by characters assumed to be dead). A clunker that is reminiscent of post-Jaws late-1970s turkeys such as Grizzly and Claws, this is not recommended. (F. Swietek)