THE STORY – A grieving woman testing her limits in the Australian wilderness is suddenly ensnared in a deadly game with a ruthless predator.
THE CAST – Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton & Eric Bana
THE TEAM – Baltasar Kormákur (Director) & Jeremy Robbins (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 96 Minutes
The Australian outback is a harsh yet beautiful landscape. It’s a place that serves as a silent reminder of human vulnerability. In “Apex,” director Baltasar Kormákur attempts to capture the survivalist tension of his previous films, like “Everest,” into a localized, intimate nightmare. While the film possesses a certain kinetic energy, it often stumbles, ultimately saved from mediocrity only by the sheer physical commitment of its leads.
We first meet Sasha (Charlize Theron) in a state of both literal and metaphorical suspension. She clings to a tent on a mountain face alongside her partner, Tommy (Eric Bana). Sasha is a woman marked by her determination; her worn hands show a lifetime spent striving for the highest heights. When a rockslide triggered by a storm turns their ascent into a tragedy, Tommy falls because Sasha can’t hold on. It’s a moment of failure that becomes the emotional core that carries the rest of the film.
Five months later, Sasha is wandering across the Australian outback, trying to find healing in the rapids of a national park. The cinematography beautifully captures the vastness of the landscape, making Sasha look like a vulnerable dot among the greenery. However, as the story shifts from a meditation on grief into a thriller like “The Most Dangerous Game,” the visual style falters. Kormákur uses a dizzying camera and a strange yellow-green filter that hides the environment’s natural splendor, making many scenes hard to look at.
The film pivots into horror territory when Sasha meets Ben (Taron Egerton), a man whose charm hides something dangerous. Egerton delivers an unsettling performance; he moves with the agility of a monkey and screeches like a bird to announce his presence, making sure Sasha always knows he’s nearby. It quickly becomes clear that he is a hunter, but he’s not interested in deer or other big game. He hunts humans. But he isn’t just hunting Sasha; he is performing a “ritual.” The revelation that he enjoys hunting people is especially dark, particularly as the film takes a cult-like feel. But there is a shift in tone that pulls you out of the narrative as you discover more of what Ben has been up to. As a character, Ben isn’t developed enough for us to understand him, and the sudden weirdness of his story clashes with the film’s established action and survival themes. Writer Jeremy Robbins fails to give Ben the psychological depth that would make him a compelling movie villain. Although there are hints of a richer narrative, the film mostly skips over these for the sake of the chase.
What the film focuses on with more care is its story of a woman finding closure in the most harrowing of circumstances. At one point, Sasha must climb a mountain face without gear, serving as a powerful metaphor for her internal battle. In reality, her toughest act of survival isn’t fleeing from a predator; it’s overcoming the guilt of losing Tommy. Theron’s strength as an actor shines through here, as she brings a grounded portrayal of a character that could easily have felt like a hollow archetype.
Theron has spent the last decade cementing herself as a titan of the action genre, delivering performances that are both physically demanding and emotionally impactful. From the relentless, gritty intensity of an undercover agent in East Berlin in “Atomic Blonde” to the stoic immortality of an ancient warrior in “The Old Guard,” and of course, the battle-hardened Imperator Furiosa in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” she has consistently raised the bar in action cinema.
Even in a flawed film like this, the action remains creative. Notably, “Apex” uses water as a primary set piece in a way few survival thrillers do, forcing Sasha to navigate the rapids’ crushing force while being pursued. Although Theron’s physical commitment to the role is beyond reproach, one only hopes she doesn’t get stuck in a cycle of similar action roles. Theron and Egerton give us a masterclass in physical performance, but “Apex” itself never quite reaches the summit it aspires to.
