Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton Face Off in a Flawed Survival Thriller

Picture Credit: Netflix

From Chernin Entertainment (Fear Street franchise, Back in Action) & star/producer Charlize Theron, Apex is the new survival thriller from director Baltasar Kormákur, who previously challenged his audiences to a battle against their external environment with his rogue monster lion attack film Beast (2022) with Idris Elba and the expedition gone wrong film Everest (2015) with Jason Clarke & Josh Brolin.

Written by Jeremy Robbins (The Purge TV series), the story takes us mountainside into the life of adrenaline junkies Sasha & Tommy (played by Theron & Untamed lead Eric Bana), a couple who take mountain climbing to bold extremes; camping in tents fastened to the facing of a rock wall several thousand feet in the air, scaling the highest peaks in the harshest conditions, and championing each other as they pull off amazing feats. However, after a horrific accident during a storm, Sasha is now alone and reeling from the tragedy that took everything from her.

Now in Australia, where Tommy called home, she sets forth to Grand Isle Narrows, a menacing river canyon surrounded by daunting rock formations. Upon her arrival, she notices several missing person reports of hikers, explorers, & families that have vanished during their excursions into the area. Despite warnings from a local park ranger and obnoxious hunters, Sasha presses on alone … that is, until she encounters Ben (Carry-On star Taron Egerton), a native to the area who helps give her some direction & guidance to the Narrows and happens to be camping along the route that she has taken.

When Ben finally reveals his true intentions for Sasha, the story becomes a fight for survival as she quickly discovers that nature isn’t the only thing out for blood.

Apex has many ingredients that sound perfect together. Two well-decorated, award-winning actors take up most of the movie together. A director who has previous work conveying battles against the elements in extreme circumstances, and battles where humans are prey to a predator of sorts. Toss in an Oscar-nominated cinematographer in Lawrence Sher (Joker), and you have an immense amount of talent for a 90-minute cat & mouse psychological thriller.

In fact, the first act of the film lulls you into a false sense of competency as it plays to the strengths of its core players: Theron gets to play sentimental but driven opposite a solid partner in Eric Bana while showing off her well-established physical qualities from previous action films, director Kormákur gets to display tension on a mountainside like he did very well with Everest while Lawrence Sher gets to capture incredible vistas both in snow capped mountains and the rugged terrain of Australian canyon country, & Egerton gets to look helpful & charming in his character’s best attempt at normalcy.

But as this film wears on and the more it decides it wants to be a Deliverance-style thriller with a demand for Cape Fear/Hannibal Lecter-level performance from its villain, it woefully underperforms, revealing the casting mismanagement, lack of tension, & painful dialogue along the way.

The film feels infatuated with beauty – its scenic locales, model-like actors, brightly lit digital cinematography – in a story that is written to feel scarred & horrifying when the switch in genre occurs. There is so little intensity & darkness that even seeing a lair full of rotting corpses didn’t even register those feelings.

With Egerton, his character doesn’t do much of anything besides chase; and when he does, he plays his character with such childlike exuberance & smiling playfulness that it’s hard to take him seriously as a threat – not to mention the fact that he is shorter than Charlize Theron and talks with an auditory conundrum of an Aussie transplant accent. The patchwork collection of horror villain character traits feel contradictory & cartoonish with each added layer. Mommy issues, ritualistic killing, warped outlook shaped by childhood trauma taken out on the world … all packaged in an almost gleeful Egerton with douchey roommate energy complete with erratic taste in tunes.

With Theron’s portrayal of Sasha, it is incredibly hard to grab hold of anything tangible from her character past the opening act. As an imposing survivalist and ego-driven extreme sports professional, she doesn’t fit the mold as a victim, nor does she communicate like one. None of the emotion or trauma from her relationship with Tommy seems that relevant to her horrible experience with Ben. What does she have to fight through or overcome? What does she want that motivates her to survive? Who wouldn’t pick her in a fight against Ben without guns or arrows? She doesn’t know whether to manipulate him, outsmart him, or understand him in any situation. Worse yet, the film’s final moments see her analyzing her guilt & depression with her psychopath before asking his help. By the film’s end, neither character makes sense with the other, with actions & monolgues that contradict any moments of relevance before it.

While Apex does spiral out of control and lose all sense of rationality, the further its story moves towards its head-scratching climax, it does have some glimpses of why this script was attempted in the first place. If you get two great actors with incredible physicality to chase and battle each other, good things CAN happen: Theron bashing Egerton’s leg repeatedly with a large rock, Theron being dragged through dangerous waters while bound and helpless, Theron trying to escape by boat and getting caught in a large-toothed bear trap – all captured by proven talent behind the camera.

Unfortunately for us all, Apex drowns in the waters of poor execution of an already flawed & razor-thin script. My admiration for Egerton & Theron can only go so far when they don’t belong in the roles they inherited. While I may not have the venom I’ve had in the past for such A-List Netflix action debacles like Atlas or Trigger Warning (sorry for catching strays), I can say for certain that this is one of the more bewildering outcomes in some time for the streamer.

Watch APEX If You Liked

Don’t Move
Trapped, Deliverance
The Green Inferno
Cliffhanger

MVP of APEX

Charlize Theron as Sasha

There are many things to celebrate in Theron’s incredibly diverse & accomplished career as an actress & producer. Her striking looks, her gift for humor as much as intensity, her broad taste in projects from smaller Oscar-winning films to blockbuster franchises. But one of the things that goes a tad overlooked in her career is her willingness & ability to use her gifts as an athlete.

From at least Aeon Flux in 2005, Theron has shown she can handle a large amount of her stunt work and truly commit to the character’s skills. Even more recently, in the Old Guard films, there has been a lot of Behind-the-scenes footage of her using sword & fighting techniques to accomplish some very convincing choreography in the action sequences.

For this film, Theron is said to have learned to rock climb from legendary climber Beth Rodden and shot the vast majority of climbing scenes without a stunt double. Her free solo on the final ascent of this film was as athletic & convincing as any stunt performance she’s done in her entire career. She continues to put her body on the line for every action-packed performance and gives a level of authenticity not found in most current stars of the genre.

To reach the summit, everything has to work just right. For Apex, all of its talent in front of and behind the camera cannot save it from falling off a cliff after its initial stages. A cat & mouse game for people disinterested in the why or how.