Tepid romance kills the suspense and thrills of 'The Gorge'

Show Caption

Hide Caption

'The Gorge': Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy find romance, horror

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy play elite snipers manning towers on opposite sides of a mysterious gorge in the sci-fi thriller "The Gorge."

I like big dumb movies.

“The Gorge,” a new film on Apple TV+ directed by Scott Derrickson, is kind of big and a lot dumb. And there are monsters! Despite that, and a talented (if tiny) cast, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I should have.

Maybe the ratio of big to dumb isn’t quite right, or vice versa. Or the two leads, Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, don’t have the chemistry that’s required. Or maybe it feels like shortcuts have been taken. (The script, by Zach Dean, appeared on The Black List, a list of the best unproduced scripts, in 2020.) It’s like it’s trying to be a smart film at times, but just can’t quite seal the deal.

What is 'The Gorge' about?

The concept is simple enough. Levi (Teller) is a legendary U.S. Marine sniper, maybe the greatest in the world, but he’s retired. The only battles he fights now are the ones in his head, residue from all his kills. Oh, and he’s a poet. This will come in handier than you might think.

Drasa (Taylor-Joy) is a Lithuanian assassin working for the Russian government; also great at her job, which means she’s killed a lot of people (she, too, is a crack shot). Both are loners, as people with these sorts of jobs tend to be in movies (and probably in real life). What could they talk about at parties? “Oh, hey, Levi, who’d you kill today?”

Neither knows about the other. Yet.

Levi meets with a creepy, powerful woman (Sigourney Weaver, good at this sort of thing), and before you know it, he is posted on one side of a big, deep gorge, with fencing and concertina wire and big weapons and whatever you can think of all over the place. Across the gorge, 600 meters away, there is a similar setup. That’s where Drasa is stationed.

Levi’s predecessor tells him (before he takes off after his one-year hitch) that ever since the end of World War II, Western forces and Eastern forces agreed to assign someone to either side. There is no outside communication of any kind except for a monthly radio check-in. No one, including presidents, kings and prime ministers or anyone else, knows about the arrangement. So what are we doing here, Levi asks, trying to keep people from going in the gorge?

“No. You need to stop what’s in the gorge from coming out.”

OK, so far so good. The set-up is creepy and foreboding. There are enough unanswered questions and mystery — as well as evident danger — to the whole thing to grab your attention.

Once Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy meet, 'The Gorge' screeches to a halt

And then Levi and Drasa meet.

At a distance. Long story short: She writes messages on signs to him, he responds, they take turns playfully shooting at each other — hey, it’s what they’re good at — and before you know it, he’s running a line across the gorge to visit. It’s not like anyone will know as long as Levi is back for his monthly check-in. He runs into a bit of trouble when his momentum stops him about halfway over, but he figures out how to go the rest of the way.

The movie is kind of like that. This is where things fall apart. Their relationship strains credulity. And, not to be rude, but they’re not nearly as interesting as what might be happening down at the bottom of the gorge.

As with Levi on the zip line, it’s like, here’s a really cool set-up, hurtling forward, one crazy idea after another and … stop. Let’s have a bit of romance.

Not to worry. Events conspire to land them both at the bottom of the gorge, where all sorts of dangers await. As does the answer to the mystery. It’s somewhat convoluted, and the action is stuffed full of unlikely escapes and the always popular quick healing after an injury.

Like the gorge, there’s no great way out of “The Gorge.” You just have to hope for some fun along the way. The movie delivers that every now and then, but not nearly enough. Bigger! Dumber! Something! I’d settle for just better.

'The Gorge' 2.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Scott Derrickson.

Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver.

Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, brief strong language, some suggestive material and thematic elements.

How to watch: Streaming on Apple TV+ Friday, Feb. 14.

'The Social Network' rewatch: How a scene explains Zuckerberg's fealty to Trump

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Subscribe to the weekly WatchList newsletter. Listen to Valley 101.