Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy shine in this entertaining AppleTV+ Sci-Fi thriller.
A lot of us critics have been complaining about the CGI effects used in “Captain America: Brave New World.” I criticized them as “indulging” in my review, but I still recommended it for some of its entertaining and interesting aspects. I long for the good old Marvel days and I already got some hate comments on Facebook, but I still stand by my opinion of the film.
For those of you who choose to stay home, here’s a new AppleTV+ thriller with entertaining CGI effects, plot elements, and charming leads in the forms of Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. It’s also the latest entry from director Scott Derrickson (“Doctor Strange,” “The Black Phone,” “Sinister”), and it’s not a Marvel film. Not that it makes much of a difference anyway.
Teller plays an American sniper named Levi, who has nothing left to lose, and Taylor-Joy plays a Lithuanian sniper named Drasa, who has a dying father and works for Russia. They respectively agree for a mission so secret, no one will tell them the job or what country they’re in. All they know is that they’re not allowed to make contact with one another, and they need to keep what’s in the gorge from getting outside. And the screeching would come from what they call the hollow men, which Levi acknowledges come from a T.S. Eliot poem.
Breaking the rules, they write on white boards and have the binoculars to read them. They shoot and kill the hollow men. And they have a little dinner at her station.
But things take a turn for the worst when they find themselves in dangerous territory. And whatever these hollow men are, they look like zombie descendants of either Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy” or even the title knight in “The Green Knight.” Some of them look and feel like walking trees and some of them even look like spiders or centipedes. And there’s even a scene between Drasa and a hollow man that almost feels like the cave scene from “The Empire Strikes Back.”
As a matter of fact, I think these creatures are lot more interesting than the Red Hulk. Sometimes the effects can be a bit much and other times, they can be attractive. But either way, bullets will be firing.
And the whole mission is supervised by some by the name of Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), who makes sure whatever secret the gorge unfolds doesn’t get out. Even it means making sure these two lovebirds are dead.
“The Gorge,” written by Zach Dean (“The Tomorrow War,” “Fast X”), does lag in various areas, and the film runs for over 2 hours, but I still admire the choice of genres made in it. It chooses to be romantic, humorous, emotional, exciting, and sometimes thought-provoking. And because of these creatures, it almost plays like a virus thriller with less cliches and biting and more chemistry between Teller and Taylor-Joy and secrets within the gorge. I won’t give anything away for the sake of spoiler alerts, but this is where you express your opinion on whatever goes down there.
As I watching this movie, which partly takes place in a fantasy wilderness, I was reflecting on how bad “Chao Walking” was. That was about a planet whose inhabitants had their thoughts spoken out loud, and that was a noisy mess with dumb characters and pointless chases through the woods. “The Gorge” takes advantage of its choice of location, creatures, and characters to find a portion of streamers who can overcome whatever cynicism the entertainment industry unfolds for us. Even though I see some negative people and I have to pan half the movies I see, I still try to be optimistic on the other half.
Not every movie needs the cliches regarding break-ups, betrayals, or arguments. I’m talking, of course, about Levi and Drasa. Now, I much more relaxed.
Now Streaming on AppleTV+
