‘Apex’ Falls Into a Ravine of Survival Horror Tropes [Review]

Junk food used to taste good. I’m not going to argue the likes of, say, Vertical Limit are especially high-art, but there was an earnestness to its rock-scaling antics that’s all too often missing from the biggest, loudest action thrillers today. Apex, the latest in an ever-rotating assembly line of Netflix algorithmic products, is certainly big and loud. It’s a movie inasmuch as you can see it and hear it. Whether it accomplishes anything beyond that, well…

Baltasar Kormákur certainly has the sauce. Beast had Idris Elba locked in fisticuffs with giant lions. Oscar-shortlisted The Deep ranks among this century’s best survival thrillers. Kormákur is better suited than most for a predator v. prey jaunt through the woods, so it’s all the more surprising that Apex belies its title, settling for glossy, bottom-rung thrills without any spark. Star Charlize Theron, one of this generation’s best, certainly could have used a jolt.

She stars as Sasha, an REI acolyte saddled with the requisite trauma needed to give her inevitable fight for survival resonant juice. Hunky husband, Tommy (Eric Bana), might as well be wearing a morgue tag in the cold open. He’s going to die in the kind of totally unpredictable disaster these movies thrive on to push Sasha toward a solo trip in the Australian Outback, a kind of farewell to her dearly departed Sean Cody day player.

It’s Aussie horror lite at first. Rural, sandy, and filled to the brim with menacing hayseeds whose default state is ambiguous danger. Nice guy, Ben (Taron Egerton, playing against type with mixed results), is a breath of fresh air. Until he reveals he’s a cannibalistic serial killer coordinating his own in the outback.