The Gorge directed by Scott Derrickson
The good news about Apple’s new movie The Gorge is that it’s a perfectly serviceable streaming movie, the actors do an excellent job, the visuals are fantastic, and you also are basically getting two movies for the price of one. The bad news is one of those movies is vastly more original and engaging than the other, the plot of that second film is overly familiar and predictable, and while the visuals are stunning, they’re also something we’ve seen before.
The premise of the film is that post-WWII, the eastern and western nations sets up two watchtowers to guard the namesake gorge and keep whatever is in there from getting out. Both sides are heavily militarized, with mines and auto-shooting heavy guns. Each year two guardians are chosen — one by the eastern bloc, one by the west — in relief of the prior year’s guardian, with strict orders to have absolutely no contact with their counterpart on the other side (a rule that doesn’t really make sense at several levels and that also raises the question of if that’s so, why set the two watchtowers directly across from each other with tripod binoculars aimed at each other). At the start of the film we’re introduced to the two about to be chosen for this year’s service: Levi, a former Marine and world-class sniper, played by Miles Teller. And Drasa, a Lithuanian sniper-assassin played by Anya-Taylor Joy.
We get a very brief backstory for each — Levi’s PTSD and nightmares have gotten him labeled unfit for further duty while Drasa has to go dark for a year after her last mission, meaning she’ll likely be gone when her cancer-ridden father dies — and then the two get dropped (literally) into their positions with no idea of where they are. Levi gets briefed by the British soldier (played by Sope Dirisu) he’s replacing, whose own pet theory is that the gorge is an opening into hell. We assume Drasa gets the same from her predecessor, though we’re not shown it. Then for the next chunk of film we watch the two at first settle into their roles and then break protocol by communicating with each other via hand-written messages held up to be read by the other via high-powered binoculars, interrupted once by an attack by horribly deformed creatures (named the “Hollow Men” by a previous guardian) trying to scale the gorge walls.
Levi is the typical stoic military killer haunted by his past, unable to “compartmentalize” his skills as he once could. He’s also a “humble” poet. Drasa is much more lively and energetic, a true free spirit though she too has found the kills getting harder, and she’s also pre-grieving the loss of her father. The slow courtship that develops between these two lonely, haunted souls, obviously made difficult by the literal chasm between them, makes up the first half of the film and, for me at least, was by far the best part of the movie. Levi’s quietly wry responses and Drasa’s exuberance (dancing to “Blitzkrieg Bop”, placing a bottle atop her head for Levi to shoot at, etc.) make for an incredibly charming show. Admittedly, I don’t know how much longer the film could have gone working that storyline, but I definitely would have happily kept going with it longer than the movie does.
But of course, the gorge is this film’s Chekhov’s Gun, and so the two have to end up down there so the big mystery can be revealed. And this is where the story moves into overly familiar land. I won’t spoil the mystery, simply note we’ve seen it a million times before. Personally, I think had Dirisu’s theory about the gate to hell been correct, that would have been a more interesting (if also familiar) story. But in all honesty, my preference would have been to let the gorge remain an unknown and focus on the relationship between the two main characters.
Because what happens when we enter the gorge itself is all that good work setting up their relationship disappears as the scenes becomes just a series of running skirmishes: attack, lots of shooting/stabbing, move on, attack, lots of shooting/stabbing, move on, shampoo, rinse, repeat. The two do very little talking or interacting save for spinning the other around to shoot what’s coming up behind them or pulling each other up from the ground. The fight scenes were decently staged and tense enough, though I confess to fast-forwarding through some latter ones. But it felt a shame to leave the relationship aspect behind and while the two actors work their fighting moves fine, it didn’t really leave them much to do in terms of actual acting. Throw in the predictability of what they discover and the clunky exposition of conveniently coming across a film reel that literally pauses the film for a few minutes to explain everything, and this second half really is a sharp drop-off in quality compared to the front end of the movie.
The one positive element is the visual presentation. The use of shifting colors, weaving mists, ruined buildings, and hybrid creatures deformed but still recognizable is all fantastically done. It’s true the creatures will call up echoes of The Thing (Carpenter’s version), the Alien franchise, and more recently Annihilation, but that doesn’t negate the stunning fantastical staging. One particular segment, with Levi and Drasa crossing a sort of WWI no-man’s land was in particular equally gorgeous and disturbing.
As noted at the start, though I would have been disappointed had I paid and traveled to see it in a theater, The Gorge is perfectly serviceable for a night at home watching TV. Overly familiar and overly long through its second half, but I never considered turning it off even as I kept thinking “seen it, called it, seen it . . .” And it has its cute moments of writing beyond the opening half. Casting Sigourney Weaver in a movie with clear visual callbacks to Alien and that also slyly plays with her character in those films is one example, even if the role itself is pretty cardboard. Calling a paramilitary group “Dark Lake” is another clever jab. So the film serves up a solid evening. My biggest regret is less the movie itself than the movie it could have been had it met the promise of its first half.