In a world where the visual medium of cinema frequently looks indistinguishable from the listless images of television, it feels criminal that such a dynamic movie like The Gorge would get a straight-to-streaming release on Apple TV+ with no limited or wide theatrical component. Though not without trying, since the streamer did attempt to bring some of their highest-profile titles to cinemas in 2023 and early 2024, with Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, Argylle, and Fly Me to the Moon. However, they were all commercial disappointments, despite the Martin Scorsese-directed adaptation of David Grann’s book being nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
As a result, Apple is back on the direct-to-streaming bandwagon, a move that will arguably ensure thrilling entertainment like The Gorge finds no perennity beyond the people who were aware that, yes, an action-horror flick starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy from the director of Doctor Strange is out on the streaming service for Valentine’s Day. With cinematography from Dan Laustsen, a frequent collaborator of Guillermo del Toro and best-known for his contributions to the John Wick franchise, it seemed like a no-brainer to give this movie the proper IMAX release it deserved. And yet, that’s not what we have.
Apple may change its mind when the theatrical-exclusive F1 hits IMAX theatres during the summer and makes them realize that cinemas are what ensures movies truly stand the test of time and not simply act like a cog in the ever-growing algorithm for its streaming service so they can add “content” just for the sake of filling their library. As it stands, however, The Gorge is getting a streaming-only release, which is an absolute shame, considering the amount of impeccably mounted and visually show-stopping action Derrickson and Laustsen craft in the movie’s last hour, where protagonists Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), find themselves deep in the movie’s titular location.
With incredible timing in how the camera moves to reveal specific elements in the discoveries of what lies beneath the gorge and stark use of expressive colors, director Scott Derrickson stages the best action of his career, putting the audience smack-bang in the middle of inexplicably horrific chaos. One scene in particular, involving Drasa and a horseback antagonist, made me jump out of my seat in ways I thought weren’t possible at home. With Laustsen dictating the film’s look, a storied cinematographer who knows how to compose wildly imaginative frames full of genuine life and heightened tones that stimulate our senses, it’s hard not to immerse ourselves in the dystopian hellscape Derrickson plunges us in.
The Gorge Takes a Bit of Time to Get Going
Eventually, because what comes before the gorge features a mixture of terrible to adequately good scenes that eventually leads into what we’ve all been waiting to see. Anything involving Sigourney Weaver’s shadowy villain who enlists Levi to watch over the gorge falls pitifully flat. And it isn’t Weaver’s fault at all. She tries her darndest to be solid enough with the shoddy material far above her talents, especially when she played an antagonist in Marvel’s The Defenders with even wobblier scripts. It takes a Herculean feat to make one of the greatest living actresses appear completely weightless with every line of dialogue she’s forced to utter, which immediately posits her as a character Levi shouldn’t trust but does so since he has nothing to live for anymore and is drawn back into a world he’d wanted to leave behind. The task itself looks easy enough, but with his superior hiding critical information, something he’s impervious to is bound to be discovered if he looks hard enough.
Derrickson also attempts to infuse humanity within Drasa’s arc through a quasi-existent relationship with her father, but that, too, falls terribly flat. Only when the two characters, surveilling both extremities of the gorge, start to make contact does the movie begin to show genuine signs of life. With little dialogue in its opening sections, Levi and Drasa communicate through cue cards as they get closer to each other. Since they will spend a year surveilling the gorge and attempting to contain whatever is found inside, they might as well talk, even if they are forbidden from doing so. However, when one person falls in love with another, it’s hard to listen to your orders, and Levi soon ziplines to Drasa’s place for a dinner date after building a nifty set-up to traverse the gorge safely.
That’s where things start to go wrong because on his way back, his zipline predictably breaks, and he is now thrust into the depths of the gorge, the place his superiors have repeatedly told him not to visit – and for a good reason. I will not tell you what is found in those depths, but it’s sure to satisfy both action and supernatural cinema fans, for which Derrickson seems to have great reverence. With another grandiose techno-heavy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (a great companion to Challengers, and I’m not even joking), the energy that emanates in The Gorge’s multiple exciting setpieces will thrill you and potentially make your jaw drop. This is how incredible of a photographer Laustsen is as if we didn’t already know that already. It’s still cool of him to remind us why he’s one of the best in the game, with a deft mix of the macabre language he’s developed with Guillermo del Toro coupled with artful action sequences containing an explosion of vivid colors that he perfected with Chad Stahelski.
Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller Have Solid Chemistry
A film like this wouldn’t have worked if the chemistry between Teller and Taylor-Joy wasn’t rock-solid. For a while, they seem to be starring in two different movies until Derrickson pairs them together, and the magic occurs naturally. The film is often surprisingly funny and heartfelt, thanks in no small parts to how both actors humanize their protagonists through the layers of vulnerability they are afflicted by. As a result, when they finally meet and have a proper discussion for the first time, Levi and Drasa realize their regretful and tormented lives, full of dark secrets, haven’t been personally and professionally fulfilling, and they’re both willing to give it all up if it means being together. It’s clichéd, sure, but effective enough to make us care about them when they’re stuck deep into the gorge and have to work together to find a way out effectively.
They also hold their own efficiently during action scenes, likely helped through their experience in that world by working with Joseph Kosinski for Miles Teller and George Miller for Anya Taylor-Joy. We do see a bit of a young Furiosa when Drasa manipulates a turret to keep the forces of the gorge inside, while Teller seems to finally have the makings of an action star after years of being profoundly miscast in roles that never suited his talents. It does feel strange that they would give their all for a direct-to-streaming offering, but that’s the result of working with a filmmaker who profoundly cares about his movie, from the arresting visuals to the perfectly calibrated balance of action thrills with an otherworldly flair to its story.
That’s why it’s a shame that The Gorge ends in such an anticlimactic way that I wondered if the 128 minutes I spent in front of it were genuinely worth it. I had a good enough time, and Laustsen’s panache certainly made me forgive many of its flaws. But no great visual storyteller or storied actor could’ve ever made that haphazard, Hallmark-lite conclusion good in any way. It feels so at odds with the dreary tone and atmosphere Derrickson has been patiently setting up from the moment the movie begins. Still, as far as streaming “content” is concerned, this is definitely one of the better movies to have come out of the Apple machine, and there’s hope that they will eventually rejoin the theatrical bandwagon much sooner than later. They just need to see the light to realize what they’ve been missing. In their case, it will likely be the Formula 1 light, but time will tell if they’re willing to race to the cinema again.
The Gorge releases exclusively on Apple TV+ on February 14.