Last year flew by, especially when it came to entertainment, particularly movies . However, it wasn't like that for music, video games, books and arts. Maybe it's just me, but I felt 2025 was not a good year for films, but I hope this year brings better things; my expectations are high.
A lot of movies I saw last year didn't quite hit the mark for me or leave a lasting impression. I can count a few movies I saw that were impressive and quite unexpectedly entertaining for me. This movie, The Gorge was one of them - it stood out for me. It is a good movie to escape reality and one of the best I have seen in years.
The Gorge (2025) is an Apple Original Films that is a sci-fi, action, romance - horror film. It was directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Zach Dean with a group of nine people from on the production team. It starred Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Ruta Gedmintas (WWII Scientist), William Houston and a few others.
About The Plot.
At the beginning of this movie, we were introduced to the first main character. Levi Kane, a semi-retired Marine sniper who is being called in by his command superior. He was recruited by Bartholomew for a very unusual job that will last for a year. This job was quite vague, he was to take over from his predecessor and classified that Levi wasn't provided with some specific details about this job. Seeing that he had nothing to lose, no family, and loved ones, he decided to take the job with the hope that he was serving his country.
On the other hand, we were also introduced to the second main character. Drasa, a Lithuanian sniper who is also a covert operative. She was also recruited by someone for that same job Levi was recruited for. Now this job was about protecting, securing and watching a gorge from two vast high watchtowers (east;west). Both snipers on the watchtowers are under strict rules to not communicate with each other or the outside world.
This gorge is said to contain hideous creatures nicknamed the ”The hollow men”. These creatures are not meant for the outside world and the job of Levi and Drasa is to prevent ”the hollow men” from crawling out of the gorge. Also, this gorge's location is kept hidden by powerful cloaking antennas and each tower is armed to contain these creatures within the gorge. However things got interesting when Drasa broke the ”no contact rule” with Levi. How did the gorge come to be? Where did the creatures come from?
My Review And Rating.
This movie took me by surprise and I was satisfied with the last impression. I watched this movie because of two things; its cast and the genres involved. Also, Miles Teller has pissed me off in the past from his roles in previous films he starred in and I will say, he has finally redeemed himself in my sight. I'm not pissed anymore, rather I see him as an amazing actor that can perform any role that is given to him excellently well. After watching this movie and enjoying it, I think it helped that I didn't see any trailers before I saw the movie.
The characters in this movie were fun, easily got my attention. It was so easy for me to get invested and care about them that from the beginning of the movie I started rooting for them against the villain who was still kind of in the shadows. The cast was small, and the setting was kind of limited, which was actually the best part of it. I like that the two main characters had good chemistry that made their love great and interesting to watch.
The plot was well written and all the characters were fully fleshed out. If the characters were more, I think this movie wouldn't have done well. The storyline came with a good narrative technique. It was solid, with good old school romance for setting the pace, the tension and suspense and little bit of action to spice up everything. I say the production team and director did a fantastic job.
The cinematography was well done considering that it was a small budget film. Honestly, I'd given up on Hollywood to be able to produce this kind of solid, simple yet interesting movie. The action scenes were well shot, fantastic angles, the mood and tone was great. The editing, acting, visual effects and horrific scenes were done excellently. The creatures were designed well and I'll just say something out of The Stranger Things series. For me, the movie felt like it was well finished. It ended well. I love how action, romance, sci-fi and horror was mixed together to give us an amazing story and world building. It was nicely done.
Rating this movie, I will give it 8 out 10 stars. I enjoyed this movie. It was good, satisfying and it is a movie I won't be forgetting about anytime soon. Everything was done perfectly and proportionally. Miles redeemed himself and I would love to see more of his works. However, Anya Taylor-Joy keeps on impressing me. She was fantastic. Did you like this movie?
All images above are from the movie screenshots
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