Kimber Myers
The lowest point of The Gorge is, well, the gorge. This genre mutation from Scott Derrickson peaks in its opening act as it introduces its intriguing concept and showcases the chemistry between leads Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller. However, the Apple TV+ film devolves quickly after it kicks into high gear. Oh, if this could only have been a romance about two people played by two talented actors who fall in love across an abyss, and that was just … it. Instead, the sci-fi/horror flick turns into a video game movie that feels like just one more version of a story we’ve seen before.
Taylor-Joy and Teller star as Drasa and Levi, respectively, two sharpshooters recruited by mysterious entities for an even more mysterious mission. They each take their posts: Drasa on the east side of a fog-covered chasm, and Levi on the west, with little indication of what lies between them underneath the mist. In its early scenes, The Gorge works hard to establish that these two are accustomed to loneliness and isolation, and they’re both forbidden by … whoever from communicating with the opposite side as they are charged with keeping whatever inhabits the gorge from getting out. Yet, they soon make contact with one another, forging a bond over shared experiences and falling in love across hundreds of meters using binoculars and notes.
I know you need conflict to make a story compelling, but The Gorge is at its best when the challenge is simply how can these two people connect when they’re not in the same physical space. It gets a lot less interesting at the moment when the action picks up, which is when it should theoretically get good. Once Drasa and Levi take a physical dive into the canyon of the title, the movie takes a metaphorical nosedive as well. What makes The Gorge work in its first third is the strength of these two actors, and it loses that when they’re just running around CG backgrounds shooting shit. These are two capable action stars who’ve anchored bigger movies like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Top Gun: Maverick, so they’re not the problem.
Instead, blame should be shouldered by the silly, often stupid script from The Tomorrow War’s Zach Dean. These characters are ostensibly smart people who are good at what they do, but they make idiotic choices required by the plot. And that plot feels like it’s rehashing other, even worse movies, with each new obstacle merely feeling like a new stage in a video game. This may be an original script, but it feels like an adaptation of substandard IP as it progresses toward its predictable conclusion.
With his genre-spanning resume, Derrickson should be a good fit for this material that is an amalgamation of sci-fi and horror. Without giving specifics on what is in the gorge, there are some creepy visuals and unnerving design, but too-fast editing makes it tough to really get a good look at the work. Amongst some real clunkers, Derrickson has made some solid horror movies in the past (especially the utterly terrifying Sinister), but other than a jump scare or two, this isn’t too scary. It also doesn’t dwell too deeply on the science fiction elements, leaving The Gorge in genre purgatory.
While this is a decent enough romance, that’s all on the backs of the performances of its two stars; the script does little to build up their characters’ bond beyond shared trauma. We get it: these two snipers have killed a lot of people over their careers, and it has affected who they are today, making them a perfect fit for both this mission and each other. What I would pay to never have to write the word “trauma” again in a review. It’s sometimes used effectively, but it’s too often used as a shortcut for motivation when screenwriters don’t do the work to develop their creations more fully.
With that lack of effort (or ability) behind the scenes, The Gorge squanders its talented cast and intriguing premise. There’s the potential for something good here, but it ends up lost amidst uninspired action sequences and tired ideas. Even the two big names in the credits can’t dig it out of its hole, but since it’s on Apple TV+, it’ll likely remain buried and unseen anyway.
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“The Gorge” streams Friday on AppleTV+.
