During the weekend there were two Netflix movies I was very skeptical to watch but I said F it, I havent watch a movie in a few weeks and wanted to start somehow, it packs a ton of action, there is constant action and almost no drama, after the first 20min, pure chasing through the Australian wilderness although there is not much context but imo it was not needed. The story follows Sasha, an adrenaline junkie who is out climbing the Troll Wall in Norway with her partner Tommy, played by Eric Bana, when a storm hits and everything goes to shit, there were some cool shots during that part of the movie, an avalanche knocks Tommy off the wall and Sasha is forced to let him go because she couldnt hold and it got me thinking how there is no moment for drama or shock under that situation and just like that the guy is gone in the first few minutes, which is a heavy way to open a movie and does all the work of telling you exactly who Sasha is before the movie really stat spreading its wings. Five months later she is deep in the Australian wilderness at Wandarra National Park, solo kayaking through these insane canyons called the Grand Isle Narrows, which is basically the same as putting up a neon sign that says please send a psycho killer my way, well Im probably exagerating but you get the idea. The ranger station is covered in missing persons posters, a local literally warns her that people go into those woods and never come out again, and the second she stops at a gas station to fuel up her van, a group of local hunters are already circling her like she is something to be bagged and tagged. She is there to spread Tommy's ashes and find some peace in the country where he grew up, which is a very emotional anchor for the whole thing, and you feel the grief on Charlize Theron is face even when she is just standing at a map trying to ignore the gross flirting from these guys.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16431404/
- Platform: NETFLIX
Taron Egerton showing up as the villain Ben is the best thing about this movie by a wide margin, and the dude goes absolutely full send into this role in a way you would never expect from the guy who played Eggsy in Kingsman. He is wearing these fake veneers that he actually rips out to reveal a set of jagged teeth underneath, which is such a weird and specific visual choice that you cannot stop staring at his mouth every time he is on screen, and that kind of committed weirdness is exactly what a movie like this needs to stay interesting past the setup. Ben plays the charming local at first, giving Sasha directions to a camping spot at Blackstone Bay while the whole time he is already planning the hunt, stealing her gear overnight, and letting her get a head start while a pop song blares on a speaker as his personal pump up routine. He tracks her down using a phone playing family videos as audio bait, and when she hears the voices and goes to investigate on foot, he pops out of nowhere and the game is officially on. The bird screeching noise he makes when he gets close to his prey is the kind of unhinged character detail that the movie needed more of, and word is that Egerton invented it himself on set, which makes it even better. Charlize Theron for her part is doing heavy lifting with barely any dialogue once the chase starts, she communicates the whole weight of Sasha through body language and her eyes alone, and there are stretches where she is just running and reacting and you are completely with her anyway because she is that locked in.
The problem is that the logic in the second half of this movie is a mess that kept pulling me out of it. She takes a head slam off an underwater rock that would put any normal person out cold for a week, and she just shakes it off and keeps moving like it never happened, then later she steps into a massive metal leg clamp trap that should have snapped her shin in half, but somehow she is still sprinting through the forest two scenes later with no visible issue. Ben chasing her through the canyon while somehow keeping pace on foot while she is in a kayak is the kind of thing you just have to choose to accept or you are going to spend the whole movie arguing with the screen, and I kept arguing with the screen. The secondary hunters that harass her at the van early on are a complete waste of time because they show up making a racket, act creepy, and then vanish from the movie entirely without a single payoff, like they were cut from a different version of the script and nobody caught it in the edit. The cave hideout where Ben keeps his operation has that classic slasher villain aesthetic with bodies stored in the dark, and he gives this rambling speech about rituals and consuming the spirit of his prey, which is supposed to make him feel like a deeper character but just lands flat because nothing in the script earns that kind of weight for him. You could tell from pretty early on where things were heading because the movie sets up its circular structure too obviously, telegraphing that the ending is going to mirror the opening in a very deliberate way that removes most of the surprise.
The closest comparison for Apex is somewhere between the dread of Fall, that 2022 movie with the two women trapped on top of a five hundred foot tower, and a throwback 90s slasher where the villain has a gimmick and the survivor just has to outlast him. Fall had better tension because the danger felt physically real and the stakes were simple, while Apex is trying to layer a survival thriller over a slasher vibe at the same time, and the two things keep bumping into each other in ways that hurt the pacing. The canyon cinematography is solid at times, those claustrophobic angles that make you feel like the rock walls are closing in, but then the movie cuts to wide shots that lean too hard on budget CGI and the illusion falls apart. The opening scene on the Troll Wall in Norway is the most visually striking thing in the entire movie, and it is also the part with the least amount of action, which tells you something about where the attention went. That sequence has a weight and stillness that the rest of the movie never really gets back, and every time Apex tries to build real tension in the second half you keep measuring it against that opener and finding it a little short.
#apex, #charlizetheron, #taronegerton, #survival, #thriller, #netflix, #horror, #action, #mountaineering, #australia, #kayaking, #killer, #jerky, #cliffhanger, #cinematography, #moviereview, #baltasarkormakur, #missingpersons, #adrenaline, #climbing, #forest, #rapids, #revenge, #ritual