‘The Gorge’ Movie Review: Unlikely Genre Salad Is A Hoot
Photo from Apple TV+
From Jeremy Kibler
Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge came out of nowhere, and that’s more of a promotional problem on the part of Apple TV+ than the movie’s problem. Not only is its existence a surprise but how this unusual fusion of action pic, romance, sci-fi, creature feature, and T.S. Eliot poetry just keeps changing gears. It entices and unexpectedly gels, even when it all threatens to be cornball or too much like a video game. For the most part, that turns out to be more of a feature than a bug.
Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy star as Levi, a contract mercenary and former Marine with PTSD, and Drasa, a Lithuanian sniper with a dying papa. Both are tapped for the same year-long mission by a private contractor, Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver, having fun in an icy, cardboard-villain role). Being positioned in (rather comfy-looking) observation towers on opposite sides of a fog-drenched ravine, they must patrol and make sure whatever’s below the fog stays there. Levi and Drasa begin flirting from afar and then fall for one another after she invites him over for some rabbit pie. Of course, at some point, this would-be couple will have to journey into the titular gorge and uncover the confidential secrets.
If one likes seeing different genres getting tossed together, The Gorge surely does that. It looks slick, moves at an efficient clip, and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross craft yet another propulsive score. The first half is patient and mysterious, whereas everything happening down in the gorge becomes more kinetic (and a touch too repetitive) like a survival game. The script by Zach Dean (The Tomorrow War) does get sillier once more exposition comes in and the deus ex machina rescues keep piling up (as do the climaxes), but director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Black Phone) manages to keep it all exciting. Once the film becomes reminiscent of Resident Evil and The Last of Us with its Druid-like creatures, there’s also enough icky stuff to make one squirm, including a scene with an adhesive substance.
Teller and Taylor-Joy are both compelling, disarming figures to keep us rooting for them both. While Levi and Drasa’s romance is hard to swallow, their burgeoning connection is playful and made fun to watch, thanks to the two actors. Two needle drops, The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Perfume Genius, are terrifically used in tracking their relationship from flirty to sensual. There’s really not much more to take away than what’s on the strange, wildly entertaining surface, but what other movie has two hot snipers falling in love while they battle fungal monsters from World War II?
Rating: 3/5
The Gorge is currently streaming on Apple TV+.
