Title: The Gorge
Describe This Movie In One 10 Things I Hate About You Quote:
MS. PERKY: Judith! What’s another word for “engorged”?
JUDITH: I’ll look it up.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Down in a hole, losing my soul.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Gorgeous Georges out of 5.
Tagline: “The world’s most dangerous secret lies between them.”
Better Tagline: “Love in the time of Cordyceps.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Seventy or so years ago, unknown agencies of both Eastern and Western hegemons installed automated defenses and posted two sentries, in year-long shifts, one on each side of “the Gorge.” Their objective? Prevent whatever’s in the Gorge from getting out. The two newest recruits are Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy). One’s an American, the other Lithuanian, both are snipers. The two form an improbable long-distance romance that’s threatened when Levi falls in, forcing Drasa to follow. Can their relationship survive what waits at the bottom? Can they?
“Critical” Analysis: Millennials, man. Is there any job they take seriously?
You’ve got two people tasked with defending the world from a deadly threat that took out three battalions of soldiers and they can’t go six months without breaking communications protocol and hooking up?
The Gorge starts out as an interesting (if rather familiar) concept, but evolves into a romance, wrapped in sci-fi, inside a horror movie. Director Scott Derrickson and writer Zach Dean are biting off a lot here. Some of it works, some … less so.
Principal introductions kick things off. Levi’s a troubled guy, plagued with nightmares, thanks to the hundreds of people he’s killed. Turns out sniping (snipering?) must be pretty lousy for the psyche, because Drasa also has trouble sleeping. To top it off, her father us dying of cancer, and means to end it all before her deployment is over.
The two become aware of each other early on. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say they become aware of each other’s hotness. What this calls for is a meet-cute that involves strafing the so-called “Hollow Men” off the gorge’s walls. It’s a silly scene, basically Castle Defense: The Movie. But who knows, kids love those damn video games.
That’s the thing about metaphors, they can be leveraged into anything if you don’t particularly care about accuracy. Dean goes to great lengths to jam that Hollow Men one home, as Levi (a tortured poet himself) deduces the reason some long forgotten sentry and T.S. Eliot fan named the denizens of the Gorge such. But when you get down to it, the monsters aren’t aware of their status “in death’s dream kingdom,” they’re just zombies.
Needless to say, the premise involves copious use of CGI. It’s not bad, just kind of there, and only comes alive when Derrickson decides to delve into the Lovecraftian possibilities of the situation.
The idea that these hardened warriors were just waiting for the right other sniper to come along and thaw their cold killer’s heart is patently ridiculous, and wouldn’t work if not for Teller and Taylor-Joy’s talent and shared chemistry. Teller has gotten mercifully less annoying as he gets older, and between this and Furiosa, Taylor-Joy is turning into a bona fide action here.
The only other character of note is Sigourney Weaver as the mysterious “Bartholomew.” Weaver’s become frighteningly effective in these evil bureaucrat roles.
Relax, her evil-ness is revealed 15 minutes in.
The Gorge is just another in a line of streaming releases (Prey, The Killer, The Mitchells vs. The Machines) that probably would’ve enjoyed a decent big screen run. There a little something for everybody, and while not all of it clicks, it’s goofily entertaining enough to elevate it above a lot of TV fare.
The Gorge is now streaming on Apple TV+.
