Please don't spend Valentine's Day at 'The Gorge'
Apple TV
“I’ve heard of long-distance relationships, but this is ridiculous!” — Rodney Dangerfield watching “The Gorge”
It’s very lame to quote/wonder what Rodney Dangerfield would say about anything and roughly as embarrassing to ask viewers to buy into yet another movie in which the main characters are trained killers, the action is incomprehensible, and the explanation about what’s going on is both really predictable and total nonsense. Not to mention a love story that treats proximity like destiny and strands excellent actors in a movie that’s — pun only sorta intended — below them.
Miles Teller (“The Spectacular Now,” “Top Gun: Maverick”) stars as Levi, a top-five shot worldwide (apparently they have unofficial rankings) and lone wolf recruited into a highly publicized program by Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver) to take a glorious, relaxing, two-week trip to Bali and Instagram the whole thing. Actually, the mission is beyond secret, Levi has no clue where he is, and he’s about to spend a year alone in cliffside lodging (Redfin listing pending) above the titular vastness and unknown horrors contained within. On the bright side as Levi represents the Western protection squad, in the tower on the gorge’s east side is Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy of “Furiosa” and “The Menu”), who has a biting sense of humor in the messages she writes on large paper — these two are way too far away to yell and have no phones — and no interest in abiding by the rules of ignoring each other. I mean, wouldn’t it be the cutest to tell your kids that you met your spouse playing chess hundreds of feet away from your opponent while taking a break from murdering monsters?
Maybe if the enemies weren’t ridiculous-looking tree beasts (think the Ents in “Lord of the Rings” or a very angry, generic version of Groot) or the action sequences weren’t such a blurry mess or Levi and Drasa were more knowing about the questionable circumstances of their relationship, “The Gorge” might have been a little fun. (Imagine a version where their flirtation feels more temporary and the movie’s just called “Gorge.”) Instead, the two snipers overstate their feelings and the actors get lost in a movie that continuously falls apart, despite a couple cool moments of leaping into or traversing above the misty abyss. (If the movie were called “Gorge” and featured Taylor Swift’s “Gorgeous,” there would also be a character named Misty Abyss.)
Director Scott Derrickson has succeeded in the creepy category before (“Sinister,” “The Black Phone”). Here neither the idea nor the execution works (several of the creature encounters recall the far superior “Kong: Skull Island”), and releasing “The Gorge” on Valentine’s Day is pretty funny as long as no one dives in.
D+
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