Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 🌟1/2
Don’t you just hate it when you lose your boyfriend on a mountain and go to Australia only to be hunted by a terrifying man who likes to eat people?
Description
The film opens to a scene on Troll Wall in Norway. We meet Sasha and her boyfriend Tommy, two adventure climbers. They have been attempting to scale one particularly tricky part of the mountain with no luck. Tommy tells Sasha he believes his luck has run out in terms of their adrenaline-seeking activities. Later, a storm rolls in suddenly. As they are attempting to descend to safety, falling debris hits Tommy and Sasha must make a life-changing decision.
Later, Sasha makes a trip to Australia seeking out more adventure and closure. While there, she makes a horrifying discovery (and it’s not just the venomous snakes) and must fight for survival. A true adventure film, Apex is a solid ninety plus minutes of adrenaline and suspense.
Review
I initially dismissed this as something I wouldn’t be interested in. It seemed to be your typical adventure film where someone goes a little too far following their adrenaline desires. However, Apex is all over social media at the moment and the fuss got to me. Last night, I’d finished watching the films I’d wanted to watch for the week and I gave this a chance.
The film does start as an ordinary adventure film and it’s easy to see what’s going to happen from the get-go. The pair are on a terrifying, sheer mountain wall when a storm hits, it seems obvious that something will go wrong and it does. If the predictability had ended there, I would likely have a higher rating. However, every step the film took, I was a few steps ahead. I knew what was happening the whole way through.
Many people have reported the ‘twist’ coming completely out of left field and surprising them but I have to ask, really? I imagined it was too easy to guess what was happening because the director wanted us to have the knowledge but feel helpless with it but now I’m wondering if this can possibly be the case.
Taron Egerton is excellent in Apex, he’s the standout in a sea of average. I’ve only seen him in comedies previously but he plays the villain all too well. His use of facial expressions combined with full body language and voice acting too. It’s a full combination that incites fear when you watch him and I almost forgot he’s ever been anything but a villain. Charlize Theron on the other hand was somewhat one-dimensional. I appreciate you would be rather flat if you blamed yourself for an adventure mishap but it’s too flat and meant I struggled to root for Sasha as much as I might have otherwise.
The setting is beautiful with Australia’s dangerous beauty being displayed around every corner. I understand why certain stunts and shots might have been difficult to achieve, even with Theron’s raw athleticism but the special effects felt excessive. At some parts during the film, nothing felt real and that’s not the effect I’m looking for when watching something as it does tend to remove you from the plot.
In your typical adventure thriller, there’s usually one or two instances where you think, ‘how have they survived that, then?’. How many instances of this do you think there are in Apex? The answer is too many. When she starts white water rafting, she is wearing a helmet, the correct gear and is safe in her vessel. Later, she jumps into aerated water with no safety equipment. She bangs her head multiple times, she gets bashed against a mountain more times than I could count. She should not have survived longer than a third of the way in. This prevented my full immersion into the film because it essentially turned into a silly ways to die compilation without the actual deaths.
Recommendation or Regret?
Sometimes listening to social media hype is not worth the effort and unfortunately, this is one of those occasions. If you don’t mind an overly predictable adventure thriller, I might recommend Apex just to witness another instance of Australia’s beauty but otherwise, I would suggest giving it a miss.
Want to read about another disappointing Netflix release? Try my review for Remarkably Bright Creatures next.