There are no new ideas. At least, that’s what the people in charge of ideas keep telling us. And while there’s a certain amount of truth to that, and no shame in giving old ideas a fresh coat of paint, some movies could try a little harder. Baltasar Kormákur’s “Apex” isn’t anything new, but it’s like three “not anything news” placed side-by-side on a shelf. The pieces of this survival thriller don’t work together in any meaningful way, they just occupy the same space, and that makes “Apex” less exciting than if the filmmakers had just stuck to one of their guns. Any of them.
The movie begins in the mountains of Norway, where Sasha (Charlize Theron) and Tommy (Eric Bana) are in the middle of a dangerous climb. They’re lovers, and this is how they get their kicks, but he’s got a bad feeling about this one, the same way detectives with one week left to retirement have a bad feeling about the latest serial killer case. Don’t get used to seeing Eric Bana in this movie, and don’t watch Martin Campbell’s “Vertical Limit,” because the opening of “Apex” pales in comparison.
Eight months later, Sasha ventures into the wilds of Australia to go rafting in an isolated locale where everyone tells her she should never go alone. And where countless people have mysteriously vanished. And where the locals are all threatening creeps. It’s a good thing she’s so outdoorsy, because it explains why she’s never seen a movie before and doesn’t just go the hell home.
Not everyone in Australia is creepy, of course, but the only guy who seems cool is played by Taron Egerton and we already know this movie is a thriller, so we’re just waiting for him to turn evil. He plays Ben, a hunter who clearly has seen movies before, because he likes to play “the most dangerous game.” As soon as Sasha is in the middle of nowhere, he announces he’s going to hunt her for sport. He whips out a crossbow and gives her until the end of a very bland song to run as far away as she can. (Everyone’s in such a rush these days; even Count Zaroff gave his human prey a day’s head start.)
The rest of “Apex” follows Sasha as she runs through the wilderness, down the rapids, chased by Egerton in full-on villain mode. Which, to those not familiar with “full-on villain mode,” means he’s allowed to ham it up without rhyme or reason. What we learn about Ben over the course of the movie never really gels, so depending on the scene, he’s either an angry blowhard, a charismatic serial killer, a barely-human monster or whatever else the actor felt like playing that day. Egerton is usually a fun performer, but he’s better when he has something to perform — as opposed to all the things.
Charlize Theron, of course, is one of the best actors in the business and should be able to carry a film like “Apex” with ease … or rather, with enormous physical stress, since the role requires a lot from her. The point is, she’s magnetic and convincing and should be an effective lead in Kormákur’s film, but she’s rarely allowed to drive the plot. Every attempt she makes to turn the tables on Ben goes bad, quickly, which makes the film seem repetitive and, worse, far more interested in watching her suffer than in watching her win.
At some point, “Apex” remembers that this was, initially, a mountain climbing movie, so it bends over backwards to return to first position. The conclusion of “Apex” parallels the film’s pre-credits sequence, but not in a way that makes dramatic or thematic sense. Lots of movies have formulas, but that doesn’t mean movies are math, and doing one thing at the beginning of a movie and doing it again later doesn’t necessarily mean that’s powerful or clever. If anything, the way “Apex” pulls the old “set-up/pay-off” routine negates the idea that Sasha learned anything — except that maybe her boyfriend was just dead weight all along, an interpretation the movie contradicts with its romanticized final shots.
Still, “Apex” is nice to look at even when it’s dull to watch. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher (“The Bride!”) makes the natural world luscious and intimidating, all at once. And sure enough, Baltasar Kormákur assembled a strong cast to make the most out of very little. But that’s still not much. There are cheaper, grungier films that do a better job of evoking the terror of humans hunting humans in a heartless, deadly terrain. That sense of danger, that these characters are actually imperiled, gets lost in the slick shine of “Apex,” even when the film goes “Wolf Creek” and gets a little extra nasty. It’s too classy to be classless, so the grotesquery of the story and villain fails to make an impact.
There are, of course, worse movies to watch on Netflix than “Apex,” but a lot of those movies are a lot more fun. By aiming for great heights, it comes up shorter than if it had little or no ambition at all.
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