Troy Hurtubise is the oddly interesting man he is today because he was attacked by a grizzly bear in 1984. Out of that came his life's dream--to build a suit of armor that would allow him to go one-on-one with a grizzly. The most compelling footage (and ripe for repeated viewing) in Project Grizzly is the crash testing of the 145-pound suit of titanium armor, chain mail, rubber, and interior air bags. Hurtubise, resembling a robotic Terminator, is thrown off cliffs, rammed by logs, hit by a pickup truck, and clubbed with baseball bats. And he cheerily considers those good days. Much of the rest of the film is tepid, with an almost absent narrative and hard-to-follow monologues by Hurtubise, who uses a fair amount of salty language. The biggest disappointment, though, is the lack of a climax--the $150,000 suit and its obsessed creator never do battle with the big G. It's a real-life Twin Peaks without the creepy dramatic payoff. --Valerie J. Nelson
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Strangely hypnotic portrait of a strangely hypnotic manJul 04, 2006 It would be easy to make fun of the subject of this doc. It's about Troy, a Canadian who after a brush with a bear, decides to build a bear proof suit. Yes, this was parodied beautifully on the Simpsons, but I can tell you right now, Troy is much more complex and compelling than Homer.
Let's get something straight here. Troy is not the mountain man / engineering genius he wants to be. He's just a regular joe trying to be something more. That he's chosen this road just shows how misguided we humans can sometimes be. On the other hand, there's something truly compelling his quest. Like Don Quixote, Troy lives largely in a fantasy world where he gets to be Davy Crocket and Jaques Costea at the same time.
This movie has more than its share of silly moments. Shots of Troy getting hit by cars or thrown off cliffs to test (uh, yeah that makes sense) his suit. Watch Troy rant about knives or give a story of his dramatic bear encounter (which amounts to basically a bear pushed him down and walked away) or hear him talk about the "Science" of his bear suit. All of which are absurd and unbelievable except that they are real moments. I could not look away, and I can't tell you why. And for some reason, by the end, I even respected misguided Troy because at least he's out there, trying to make his own legend.
I also recommend listening to the commentary tracks. The directer track sheds such fascinating light on this character that by the end, you realize there's more going on in Troy's head then even he knows.
1 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Worst Documentary EVER!!!Jun 27, 2006 I've seen some insulting movies in my day, but this is the worst effort I have ever witnessed. The joke is on the viewer in this sleep inducing hillbilly romp. The real messege here is, what happens when a mentally retarded canadian is given a camera for Christmas and told to make a movie. Halfway though the movie I was sure that it was a spoof documentary like "The Last Broadcast", but sadly it wasn't. Toward the end of the flick when Troy was shaving with his bowie knife I was begging the knife to slit Troy's throat so as to breathe life into this comatose film. Believe me, there isn't a drinking game in the world that could make this movie any less boring. I took a camera and video taped a blade of grass growing for 5 1/2 days and audiences raved that it had far more action than Project Grizzly. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this doc.
0 of 3 found the following review helpful:
RoboflopMar 12, 2006 Many a long year ago I saw some TV show about a man building a bear-proof suit. Scenes of a pickup ramming this guy wearing what looked like football armor on steroids was a hoot. Naturally I had to watch this DVD.
Turns out the inventor of the suit, Troy Hurtubise, didn't know when to stop. Several of his earlier suits appeared to allow some mobility, but the final version (to date) is so heavy and clunky he can barely move in it and is turtle-helpless when he falls. His scary one-time encounter with a bear that swatted him must have overwhelmed his practicality.
It's an intriguing idea, a suit that allows the wearer to survive a grizzly-mauling. It'd have pretty darn limited demand, I suppose, but bear watchers might feel more secure in one. Treadwell (in "Grizzly Man") could have used one. But the suited-up Hurtubise cannot walk on any kind of slope or rough surface when he takes to the north woods to, he hopes, encounter a grizzly, and sets the suit aside. Thus there's no climax, only scenes of various previous tests and Hurtubise's own slightly goofy commentary. He should have paid a zoo to let him enter a grizzly cage.
Hurtubise's robot-like suit is a failure, although it reminds me of my mind's image of what Heinlein's starship troopers' exoskeletal armor looked like. Too bad the grizzly armor doesn't have a similar power source. Like the suit, the documentary is mildly entertaining but ultimately incomplete.
0 of 5 found the following review helpful:
AWFULFeb 19, 2006 Grizzley man makes this guy look like the biggest self promoting idiot ever! This movie is terrible
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
"Many a man has snickered at me; many a man has laughed..." Feb 07, 2006 We're laughing at you, not with you. Like some of the characters in Christopher Guest's fictional movies, Troy (who's not fictional) thinks he's something that he's not, like namely important, macho, a rugged mountain man, a genius and the inventor of a useful bear proof suit.
Somehow (it's never explained) Troy has been able to spend seven years (!) and $150,000 working on a bear proof suit. Unfortunately the suit is 7 foot tall, weighs 180 pounds and is so rigid that you're lucky to even stand up straight without falling over.
The first half of the film shows Troy testing out the suit by hitting it with a 400 lbs. log swinging from a tree, of course, it takes like 5 or 6 men to get the suit back upright. He also shoots the suit and even walks (slowly) through some fire...must be planning on fighting Smokey's evil brother Sparkie the Bear.
The second half of the film follows Troy and his drinking buddies, I mean, team as they pound through the woods making all kinds of noise in hopes to confront a bear. The scene that best sums up the whole film is when the guys show off their noisy bears deterrents...while looking for a bear!
There's plenty of good scenes like Troy mysteriously riding on the front of a forklift (?!); Troy shaving with a gigantic Bowie knife; Troy, in the suit, getting beaten with bats by bikers (cause they hit harder than normal people!); the hand grenade story scene; Troy, his buddies and the suit eating at a Dairy Queen-style restaurant (why is the suit inside the restaurant?) and the classic re-enactment by Troy of his legendary confrontation with a bear.
based on 18 reviews
