Apple TV+’s ‘The Gorge’ mashes love, monsters for a thrilling Valentine’s Day watch
Here’s a welcome Valentine’s Day present for everyone: The most romantic new movie out isn’t a good-hearted action comedy or a Bridget Jones jam. Instead, it's a sci-fi thriller with sharpshooting assassins, skull spiders and icky plant people.
There’s a bunch of mysteries at hand in director Scott Derrickson’s horror-tinged, playfully amorous creature feature “The Gorge” (★★★ out of four; rated PG-13; streaming now on Apple TV+). The searing, spot-on chemistry between Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy is not one of them. That’s fairly obvious, even across a ginormous foggy valley where two lonely secret operatives work to keep its unholy terrors from escaping.
Levi (Teller) is a retired Marine sniper and gun for hire deemed expendable by his latest boss (Sigourney Weaver) and tasked with a yearlong assignment. Drugged and dropped off in a remote mountain region, Levi has to man a tower on one side of a huge gorge and has plenty of weaponry at his fingertips to keep a host of weird monsters (like creepers nicknamed “The Hollow Men") from reaching the surface. Most of the time he’s just there to be a highly skilled maintenance man, but he has to be ready for anything that happens.
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And oh, yeah, he’s forbidden to contact the person at the tower on the other side. That would be Drasa (Taylor-Joy), a Lithuanian markswoman who occasionally watches him through high-tech binoculars.
After a couple of months of quiet co-existence, on her birthday, Drasa decides she wants to know his name. They first communicate via signs (a la “Love Actually”) but then get to know each other through other means: shooting glasses off the other’s perch, using kitchen accessories for dueling drum solos, and even some long-distance chess. Teller brings the charm (with some hefty emotional baggage) while Taylor-Joy enchants as a punk-loving Eastern European rebel.
Flirty smirks and rule-breaking shenanigans lead to them figuring out a way to take their “relationship” to the next level – in this case, a rabbit pie dinner date – but they are occasionally reminded of the dangers below. Eventually, one winds up in the gorge, the other follows and together they investigate the dark, weird truths of what lies beneath them.
Even hardcore action fans will dig the interesting rom-com aspects and star-crossed love story that takes up a good chunk of “The Gorge.” Once Levi and Drasa get to the monster fighting and big reveals (which slow the film’s considerable momentum), you miss the intimacy of them getting to know each other. The movie plays with shades of pandemic isolation and a therapeutic understanding between two soulmates both scarred by their chosen profession.
Derrickson has done strangely trippy (“Doctor Strange”) and deeply chilling (“Sinister”) before, yet he finds a new gear with a rock 'n' roll heart and B-movie thrills that give the flick an original flavor rather than the same old monster mash. (Although if you’re a fan of “Annihilation,” you’re going to seriously dig this.) The script by Zach Dean (“The Tomorrow War”) leans smart – bone up on your T.S. Eliot beforehand – and the nightmarish inner gorge is a spiffy mix of nature run amok plus terrifying ghouls that would give Swamp Thing the willies.
Does “Sleepless in Seattle” slathered in supernatural madness sound like a good time? Then dive into “The Gorge," a Whitman’s Sampler of film genres with a delightfully sweet center that belies its freaky packaging.