Director Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, Adrift, Beast) returns to survival-thriller territory with Apex, a cliff-climbing, white-water, cat-and-mouse game in the wild. The film opens with Sasha (Charlize Theron) and Tommy (Eric Bana) making a winter ascent of Norway’s Troll Wall. They’re an adventurous couple who’ve teamed up on many challenges, but where Tommy is cautious and a little superstitious, Sasha is headstrong and impatient. When a sudden avalanche strikes during their descent, Sasha makes a crucial error and Tommy plummets to his death. By the time the title credits roll we know that Sasha is a determined, but flawed, outdoor adventurer, and that she’s wracked with guilt.
Five months later, Sasha’s still grieving as she drives alone to the remote fictional Wandarra National Park in Australia’s wilderness. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher shot the film in Australia’s Blue Mountains, capturing the region’s rugged beauty and isolation. The look of Apex’s wild spaces is one of the highlights of this movie, with its shifting terrains of snowy mountains, desert sunsets, and ice-cold rivers playing like part of an ensemble cast. Sasha is planning to honor Tommy’s memory by completing a challenging solo kayaking and climbing expedition, but don’t expect her listen to warnings or heed knowledgeable locals. A park ranger warns Sasha about a string of unexplained disappearances in the area, but she proceeds anyway. Another warns her about exploring the wilds alone, but she can’t be bothered.
Sasha manages to navigate rushing rapids, cliff dive and traverse the wild Australian landscape. Theron performs her own physically demanding stunts through the first act, which focuses on Sasha’s journey through the wilderness, processing grief while courting natural extremes. After much rowing and swimming and hiking and gazing into the breathtaking distance, Sasha encounters Ben (Taron Egerton), who initially presents himself as a friendly local guide familiar with the terrain.
Apex, like Wake in Fright (1971) and Wolf Creek (2005), will remind viewers that there’s no creepy rural character as creepy as an Australian rural character. Apex shifts into a brutal hide-and-seek thriller when the film takes on the shape of the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” with a crossbow-wielding psycho as the hunter and Sasha as the prize. This is writer Jeremy Robbins’ first feature film and his script is the weakest link here. Great writing is the difference between an outdoorsy frat house comedy like Up the Creek and a stone-cold classic like Deliverance. Man against nature, man against himself, man against man — Apex contains many of the great themes, but seems to get confused by the fact that it’s a story about a woman.
Robbins’ attempts to cast Sasha as a lone wolf badass result in predictable errors that most screenwriters make when they create a strong female lead by simply inserting an actress into a role that comes off as if it was written for a man, by a man. Why demonstrate how Sasha’s impatience and arrogance lead to Tommy’s death, and then show her ignoring every warning about going into the outback alone, if Robbins had no plans for Sasha to learn and grow into a better version of herself? These moments served the plot, but Sasha’s just sort of oblivious to the consequences of her own choices. And Robbins’ smaller players are cutouts who dribble clichés — again — only to crudely steer the plot. In a movie like Deliverance or First Blood or even the original Predator film, the secondary characters are fully formed and they enhance the mood and authenticity of those pictures in addition to assisting the plot in believable ways that seem natural to their stories. Like so many Netflix features, Apex feels paper-thin and pinned together.
That said, Theron and Egerton do their best, and some of the stunts and the action are fun to watch. As of this writingApex is the number one film on Netflix, but its days are numbered as we head into summer movie season.
Apex is streaming on Netflix.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.