Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, William Houston
I'll often watch a trailer for a movie set to premiere on a streaming
platform and think what a shame it is that it's skipping cinemas. More often
than not however, when I eventually watch said movie in my living room I end
up thanking the stars that I didn't have to waste my time heading out to the
cinema to watch such a mediocre production.
Such is the case with the Apple TV+ premiering The Gorge. With a genuinely arresting high concept premise, a pair of charismatic
leads in Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, and an established
capable director in Scott Derrickson, it seemed odd that it would
forego cinemas. But the brutal reality is that, with a few rare exceptions,
the movies that head directly to streaming platforms are simply the modern
day equivalent of those that went straight to the bottom shelves of your
local video store back in the '90s, movies that simply aren't good enough to
play in cinemas. The only difference is that now they star currently hot
actors like Teller and Taylor-Joy rather than washed up former Brat Packers
like Judd Nelson and C. Thomas Howell.
Sigourney Weaver even pops up in this thing, albeit for a
shot-in-one-day guest spot. She plays Bartholomew, a representative of some
shady wing of the US military who calls former crack marine sniper turned
mercenary Levi (Teller) in for a meeting. After establishing that nobody
would miss Levi if he disappeared, Bartholomew hires him for a top secret
mission. This sees him sent to an anonymous location where he is tasked with
spending the next year manning an observation point overlooking a
massive...you guessed it, gorge. His British Royal Marines predecessor, JD
(Sope Dirisu), instructs him on his task and then breaks the juicy
details that the chasm is home to creatures that have become known as "the
hollow men," and that Levi, along with the various remotely controlled
machine guns strategically placed along the ridge, is all that stops them
from making their way to the world. Well, not quite, as on the other side of
the gorge is Levi's eastern equivalent, Drasa (Taylor-Joy), a Lithuanian
sniper whose aim is as good if not better than Levi's.
Many have bemoaned how sexless Hollywood movies have become over the past
couple of decades, with the finger pointed especially in the direction of
superhero movies, which feature characters built like Greek gods and
goddesses who never seem to be attracted to one another.
The Gorge is refreshing in how it straight up admits that if
two people who looked like Teller and Taylor-Joy were left alone for a year
they would most likely end up getting jiggy with it. In fact, for all its
high concept monster movie shenanigans, it's the romantic subplot that is by
far the most engaging aspect of Derrickson's film. Despite never actually
sharing the screen until halfway through the movie, Teller and Taylor-Joy
have great chemistry, immediately convincing us that Levi and Drasa would be
tearing each other's combat fatigues off were it not for that bloody great
big crevice between them.
Once the actual monster movie plot kicks in, The Gorge starts
to resemble a giant yawning mouth as it devolves into a subpar sci-fi
actioner that wastes the potential of its intriguing setup. While the
initial premise is commendably original, the narrative that unfolds from
this starting point is derivative, specifically of Alex Garland. The design
of the "hollow men" is lifted directly from Garland's portrayal of the
English folklore figure The Green Man in
Men, while the world of the gorge is a knockoff of the ethereal landscape
Natalie Portman and her crew venture into in Garland's
Annihilation, which of course was itself a riff on "The Zone" of Tarkovsky's
Stalker. The reveal of what's really at play here is straight out of
Lost.
The width of the titular chasm pales in comparison to that of the gaps in
logic we're expected to overlook. Bartholomew and her organisation's whole
endeavour is highly flawed. Levi and Drasa are required to make radio
contact with their superiors once a month. Are you serious? They're guarding
the world from an onslaught of supernatural beings; shouldn't they be
checking in on at least a daily basis? If the hollow men are attracted to
sound, why would Levi and Drasa be left with their own record players,
speakers and collection of hip LPs? Such questions multiply as the story
descends towards its climax.
As charming as the unconventional courtship of Levi and Drasa is, it's hard
to swallow given their professional natures. We get the obligatory scene
where they talk about how their first kill left them emotionally scarred,
and yet they both went on to kill hundreds more. These are clearly two
people who have put duty to their countries ahead of themselves, but the
movie never mines this idea for the tension and paranoia it might have
brought to the story. At no point do we ever suspect that Levi and Drasa
might turn on one another if required by their superiors. They also seem to
have a baffling lack of curiosity about the gorge and its contents,
preferring to make chit chat rather than discussing how monsters from hell
are crawling their way up to their posts on a regular basis.
Premiering the same week that gave us
Heart Eyes, a truly entertaining romp that skilfully combines romance with horror,
makes The Gorge seem all the more of a misfire. It's no
surprise to learn that Zach Dean's script was plucked from the
infamous "Black List", which is supposed to represent the best unproduced
screenplays gathering dust in Hollywood. Like every movie that originates
from said list, there's a reason The Gorge went unproduced,
for despite its great setup, the actual script is in dire need of a few
rewrites to iron out its many issues. This is another Apple TV+ production
that looks tasty but is rotten to the core once you bite into it.
The Gorge is on Apple TV+ from
February 14th.
