The 411 Movies Top 5 01.27.12: Week 306 - Top 5 Man Vs. Nature Movies

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 01.27.2012

From Jaws and Cast Away to The Birds, Alive and more, the 411 staff breaks down their top 5 man vs. nature movies!



Man vs. nature has long been a popular theme in cinema. Typically, there are two different kinds of these films - the ones that show battling some sort of animal, or the ones that show man battling the elements (or a natural disaster of some sort). This weekend's The Grey is the best of both worlds, combining the two for what could be a near-instant classic in the man vs. nature genre. But what fine films does it have to stack up against to be considered one of the best?

THE TOP 5 MAN VS. NATURE MOVIES

TREVOR SNYDER

5. Long Weekend (1978)
A cult film that deserves more popularity than it enjoys (and certainly didn't deserve the disappointing remake it received in 2008), Long Weekend is an Australian film about a couple on a weekend camping trip in the wilderness. The two barely get along, and unfortunately allow their anger at each other to spill out into their attitude towards their surroundings, as well. The two litter, kill an innocent creature, and just generally treat nature like crap…until nature has enough and starts to strike back. Soon, the two are under siege by both animals and plant-life alike. Long Weekend is interesting in that, unlike many man vs. nature films, this one really focuses on our often casual disrespect of nature, and seems to argue that, sometimes, man is really asking for it.




4. Open Water (2003)
A truly frightening film, made all the more unnerving by the fact that it is based on a true story. Open Water chronicles the final hours of a couple left behind by the boat while on a scuba-diving excursion. Although simply watching two people bob about in the water for 70 or minutes doesn't sound all that exciting on paper, the movie derives great tension from the couple's slow realization of just what they are dealing with (especially once the sharks start arriving on the scene), and their varied attempts to do something about it. Of course, while you watch it, you sort of know this can't end well, and you can't help but think about how you would cope with such an inevitable end staring you in the face – another reason the movie works quite well at getting under your skin.




3. 127 Hours (2010)
Like Open Water, Danny Boyle's 127 Hours is based on a true story and can be a bit tough to watch…but at least this one has a far less depressing ending. James Franco stars as Aron Ralston, a climber who, in 2003, became trapped between two boulders in the canyons of Utah. With no one knowing where he was and thus no rescue coming, Ralston spent the next five days slowly drinking his remaining water and trying in vain to extricate his smashed arm from the rocks. Finally, Ralston resorted to using a dull pocketknife to amputate the arm and free himself. Boyle's direction and Franco's incredible performance elevate what could have been a tedious slog. And unlike the slow, inevitable dread of Open Water, 127 Hours instead gets to pay tribute to man's courage and the spirit of survival when faced with incredible odds.




2. Alive (1993)
Another true life tale, this one based on the incredible tale of a Uruguayan rugby team who plane crashed into the Andes Mountains in 1972. After more than a quarter of the passengers were killed in the crash (which in the movie is one of the most intense plane crash scenes ever put to film), the survivors were left stranded in the mountains. An avalanche would claim even more victims, before finally the remaining survivors were rescued more than two months after the crash. The incident (and movie) is perhaps most infamous because of the survivors resorting to cannibalism in order to stay alive, as those trapped on the mountain were forced to feed on the corpses of their dead friends. The film presents their whole harrowing ordeal without ever resorting to cheap exploitation, and is quite the powerful even beyond the whole "eating people" part of it.




1. The Birds (1963)
Normally, I would give the #1 spot of this list to Steven Spielberg's Jaws, but knowing that Bryan has that covered in his list, it frees me up to instead give the spot to another classic killer animal film, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. What makes the events of The Birds - in which the titular winged creatures suddenly begin attacking the residents of a small California town – so shocking is that, unlike Lost Weekend, we are given no reason for nature to behave this way. There is seemingly no cause for this sudden aggressive behavior; it just happens. Even though it's a fictional tale, it still serves as a nice reminder that, try as we might, we'll never fully understand nature and the creatures that live in it, and we should never get so cocky as to believe we do.

BRYAN KRISTOPOWITZ

5. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Sort of based on a true story, The Ghost and the Darkness is all about two bloodthirsty African lions that enjoy attacking people. It all takes place in Kenya, circa 1898, and involves the construction of a railroad. The lions start attacking people building the railroad, dragging people away and eating them. Val Kilmer's character is charged with finding a way to stop the lion attacks, and so he hires the badass Remington character played by Michael Douglas. Will Remington and Kilmer's Patterson be able to stop the lions and keep the railroad on schedule or will the lion tag team run roughshod over everyone that gets in their way?

Fighting off one lion is bad enough, but having to figure out how to both outsmart and defeat two lions, working in tandem, that's going to take some thought. Because how often does something like that happen, two lions, working together to kill people? It probably doesn't happen all that often, and that's why it's so terrifying. They're out there, waiting to get you, and it's all real. It's not supernatural. It's real. Great movie that doesn't get the respect that it deserves.




4. Twister (1996)
Twister is a movie all about people trying to figure out how tornados work. In order to figure that out, they have to essentially drive into a tornado and drop off a special machine that measures various things or something. What kind of moron would willingly do that? A gigantic funnel could of wind and power. Why would you want to get anywhere near it? It's all for the science, of course. It's not about getting a rush from the tornado's power and not dying. Not at all. It's all about the science.

I didn't get upset when Cary Elwes' character died after getting sucked up into a massive tornado. I didn't get upset for his driver, either. As much as I admire their drive and courage to stand up to a tornado, what the hell do they expect essentially standing that close to all that wind? I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner to them. And I'm still surprised that both Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt didn't get ripped apart by that tornado that "chased" them at the end of the movie. I bet they eventually did get done in by a tornado. You can only stick your hand in the piranha case so many times.




3. Cast Away (2000)
A man, played by Tom Hanks, is trapped on a deserted island after surviving a plane crash. He can't call for help and he isn't exactly a survivalist, so figuring out how to survive won't be easy. He does have access to a bunch of stuff, packages, that didn't get destroyed and sink in the plane crash. He can use that stuff. But, again, it won't be easy. Hopefully, for him, he won't have to stay there long. Hopefully, one day soon, help will come.

So, of course, help doesn't come and Hanks ends up spending four years on that island. He does manage to overcome most of the obstacles thrown in front of him, but it's not like the island couldn't have destroyed him if it wanted to. It could have summoned up a massive wave to bury the island in water, or the fish could have stopped coming. But then that's giving nature a personality, a sort of vengeful consciousness. Nature is indifferent to you and your suffering. Nature just is. You have to fight to stay alive, sure, but if and when the island or the sky whatever decides it's your time to go it's your time to go (think about Hanks and his makeshift boat out in the ocean, trying to escape. That thing could have tipped over at any moment. Those waves could have killed him. The dude got lucky). And it isn't personal, you have to remember that. It isn't personal. It's just business.




2. Volcano (1997)
When it wants to, nature can do some pretty messed up stuff. Take Volcano, the Tommy Lee Jones starring epic disaster movie from 1997. Jones is the head of disaster preparedness in Los Angeles, home of the American west coast earthquake. When the ground shakes one night he assumes that that's what happened. It takes the urging of one Anne Heche to tell him that what happened "last night" wasn't an earthquake, it was a volcano. Jones thinks she's nuts (pretty much everyone thinks she's nuts), but, pretty quickly, lava starts bursting through the streets and it's "end of the world" time. What the hell are Jones, Heche, and the great Don Cheadle going to do to stop Los Angeles from being completely consumed by liquid hot magma (ha)?

I love how Jones never quits trying to figure out how to beat back the lava flow. Even when it seems hopeless and he essentially says "I give up" Jones fights on. He isn't going to let a freaking volcano destroy his city. You really have to admire that.




1. Jaws (1975)
Three guys out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, chucking bloody meat into the water, hunting for a big ass great white shark that likes to chow down on pretty much anything that gets in its way. Hot chicks, little kids, old guys that spend their entire day hunting sharks while eating little crackers, the shark will eat them all. And staying in the boat isn't going to save you. Once the shark gets pissed off enough it's going to knock you out and off the boat. You're going to need a bigger boat.

But then, really, do you think Quint would have stopped Jaws with a bigger boat? Jaws would have found a way to get into that boat, too.

The moral of the story here? It isn't so much stay out of the water (although you should definitely do that if at all possible) as it's leave nature alone. Roy Scheider might have triumphed in the end, but had they just left the shark alone and let it go about its business of eating stuff that it wanted to eat and stayed out of the water I think everyone would have been eventually okay with that. The stupid people would have been eaten, sure, but then that's what they get for going in the water after being warned.

The water isn't there for you. Just remember that.

Agree with our choices? Disagree? Be sure to share your thoughts and your own Top 5's below. And don't forget to include suggestions for future Top 5 columns...we're always looking for the next great list.

Till then, for more of my movies views, check out Night of the Living Trev, my personal movie review page, as well as all the other great reviews and columns here at the Movies section of 411.

See you next week with a brand new topic.