REVIEW: The Gorge
Here’s my The Gorge review which stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor Joy and directed by Scott Derrickson from Apple.
The Gorge pits two specialists placed at the edge of different sides of the titular gorge tasked with keeping what’s down there from ever going up. For this year, we follow Levi (Teller) and Drasa (Taylor Joy) as they take up active duty as the keepers of the gorge for 365 days. But when the creepy stuff from the bottom start to climb up, they need to work together to keep the world safe and contain those beasties.
Miles Teller’s Levi is aloof and leaves a solitary life which was also why he was recruited to the mission. It’s really projects like these that helps Teller shine as the future big name in Hollywood. I liked his role as a worn down soldier with nothing to live for before getting into this cathartic experience with monsters of all sorts. He even falls in love which was a bonus if you ask me. We need more of Teller’s stuff like this and his role in Top Gun: Maverick
Anya Taylor Joy’s Drasa is an equally good character here; a Russian specialist that is the exact opposite of Levi. She wants and needs to get back to her life but is ordered to finish her 365 term. She’s conflicted at first because she wants to be with her father who is dying of cancer and both are not sure whether he’ll be around when she returns. I’m in the opinion that she did a good Russian accent plus she’s previously done this sort of thing namely in the Marvel film “New Mutants” where she played the Russian Ilyanna Rasputin aka Magik.
To complicate matters, “returning” isn’t really a thing for these guards as the film reveals in the first half that operatives that finish their terms are usually executed and that’s where Sigourney Weaver’s character comes in.
I have the admit that the film was slow building up initially from the POV of Levi before he eventually comes into contact with Drasa and the two are immediately thrust into the action after some weird sniping flirting, the pair find out what they are really up against and what they need to contain.
The film also plays on isolation and loneliness and that’s something we can all relate too plus that profound happiness when you meet somebody who actually makes you happy and kicks you out of that funk. And it also reminds us what we can do and the lengths we go through just to remove that feeling of isolation and that need to interact with somebody.
I also give this a good mark for being a movie that literally SHOWS not TELLS. Like through most of the runtime, we don’t hear much from them. And from a narrative point of view it just makes sense. By the time we reach the second half of the film and dialogue is more sparse, we get that it’s a lot of flirting, lots of romantic dialogues between the two which is OK I guess. Plus they didn’t overstuff that in the film as it’s also balanced well with action and intrigue and lots and lots of horror.
Props also for the musical choices they put in here with stuff from “The Ramones” to “Twisted Sister” to classic musical pieces. I particularly loved that scene where they played “Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Spitting Off the Edge of the World”.
There’s also some nice camera work and cinematography in this film and I guess we can chalk it up to director Scott Derrickson’s past experience in Doctor Strange. The camera smoothly panning to the left, twisting around. Pretty good stuff.
By the time we reach the second half, we are already given an explanation on what the hell these creatures are and it’s pretty absurd. Below the Gorge, we get some great looking, horrifying set pieces and creature designs including the “Hallow Men” and it definitely reminds me of “STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl” with a dark and twisted landscape and heroes left to fend for themselves against horrible abominations. I am definitely NOT a fan of those skull spiders. It also feels a lot like a massive stage from Resident Evil. I was actually waiting for a huge lumbering monster but I guess that wasn’t part of the budget.
The main bad guys also got it off easy IMHO. It felt like it could have been more and given what they got at the end was like a screen equivalent of a slap in the wrist.
Overall, the film was pretty good in my opinion was easy to bounce between romance and horror and action. The fight scenes were good and there were some set pieces that really got it going. But it felt like it could have been more. It also felt like they had to do the obligatory action moments because they were doing well in the romance bit. Music was also nice and the creature design was solid, not terrifying but good enough to muster a few jumpscares.
7/10
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