The Gorge, Review: Romantic Monster Mash is a Waste of Anya Taylor-Joy
The Gorge is the new movie from director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, The Black Phone) and writer Zach Dean (The Tomorrow War). It stars Miles Teller as Levi Kane, an ex-military super sniper given the top-secret mission of standing watch over a mysterious gorge in the middle of who-knows-where. On the other side of the gorge, with the same mission, is Drasha, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, a Lithuanian sniper working for Russia. They stare at each other with binoculars and fall in love. It isn’t all long distance lovey-dovey, however, as the two snipers must prevent the monstrous “hollow men” from climbing out of the gorge and endangering humanity.
The Gorge begins promisingly enough. The meeting in which Levi is assessed and hired by a high-level spook played by Sigourney Weaver, and the scenes in which he is airdropped into an un-disclosed location, are genuinely tense and mysterious. He is alone. He is to stand watch in a giant stone tower. He has a garden to tend that will provide him all he needs, along with wild game. There are screeches from within the gorge. Whatever is in there, is to be contained. He has guns to do this. Lots of guns. But the film that follows is not worthy of the build-up.
“…the hollow men appear to be half-man, half vegetation, and look rather as if Groot and the King of the White Walkers had an unnatural liaison.”
For a start, the hollow men, when we see them, are weightless CGI monsters and offer no sense of threat. In terms of design the hollow men appear to be half-man, half vegetation, and look rather as if Groot and the King of the White Walkers had an unnatural liaison. There is plenty of action, the hollow men come on in droves, but there is no sense of overwhelming desperation or danger. There are bullets and explosions and running around, but the action is never exciting enough and the horror is never scary in the slightest.
Speaking of things that are hollow, Zach Dean’s script, though it combines unusual elements, is obvious and derivative. The big reveal, that explains the real reason behind the hollow men’s existence, could have been lifted from any number of blockheaded blockbusters which did it better, and is so clumsily done that Teller is reduced to an expository mouth-piece for about twenty minutes. Sigourney Weaver, though always a pleasure to watch, is entirely wasted. In another cut-and-paste twist she turns out to be the real big bad (this barely qualifies as a spoiler), but she’s so easily duped, despite being a slick senior operative, that she too fails to satisfy as a villain. The whole thing is clunky with a capital clunk.
The romance angle that holds the movie together is a little more successful and adds some novelty to what would otherwise be a C-level B-picture. The relationship between Levi and Drasha is carefully built up to, with scribbled messages and long distance games, but the characters are too thinly drawn for an audience to really invest in. Let’s see. They are both snipers. The both have some angst about this. She has a dying father. He likes poetry. That’s about it. Both Teller and Taylor-Joy are excellent actors but there just isn’t enough quality material for them to generate any chemistry.
“She certainly shouldn’t be firing machine guns and rocket launchers and throwing her waif-like physique behind walls to avoid heavy fire.”
Speaking of the cast, the two principle actors have no business being in this. They could do so much better. Teller, who was so brilliant in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, would have made a dashing leading man in a different era. It’s hard to see where he fits now, but he’s got something. Taylor-Joy, with her unusual beauty, should be the darling of the indie scene. She should be working with Paul Thomas Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson, and Sofia Coppola. With her wide-spaced eyes, high cheekbones and the pointed shape of her lips, one could imagine her finding an iconic role like Jean Seberg in Breathless, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or Audrey Tautou in Amelie. She certainly shouldn’t be firing machine guns and rocket launchers and throwing her waif-like physique behind walls to avoid heavy fire. Really her agents should be ashamed of themselves. It’s as if Hollywood has found a singular actress and is now trying to shove her into a well-worn star shaped hole, which she just doesn’t fit. Rant over.
Despite all of the above, one must grudgingly praise The Gorge for being an original piece of story-telling with a real budget. Such things should be encouraged. If only it was better.
The Gorge is available now on Apple TV +
