We had the trailer for The Gorge a little while back and it looked interesting. It was out on Valentine’s Day, so I wasn’t going to take the wife out for an overly expensive meal. I suggested movie night and she fell for it.
The Gorge stars Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver and Sope Dirisu. Scott Derickson directs, the man who directed Doctor Strange, The Day the Earth Stood Still and Black Phone. A mixed bag there.
Zach Dean ‘wrote’ the movie, but I use that term loosely. The story is the main problem with The Gorge. When I looked Dean up, he is credited with writing Fast X. Oh dear.
The Story
The story for The Gorge is intriguing:
Two highly-trained operatives become close after being sent to protect opposite sides of a mysterious gorge. When an evil emerges, they must work together to survive what lies within.
We open with Drasa (Taylor-Joy), a Russian/Easter European snipper. She’s been living in a hole for a few days, waiting for her next target. She seems to be 300 miles from an airport (OK, it’s not that far, but it seemed it), where a plane lands, someone steps off and gets a bullet to the head.
She packs her things and heads off. I thought that Leon, The Professional, said that the better the assassin, the closer you got to the target.
We then meet Levi (Teller). He’s an elite snipper as well and is called in to meet Batholomew (Weaver) about his next mission. Levi has demons he’s fighting, obviously, but he takes on the mission.
He’s on a plane, has no idea where he is, and has to make his way to a meet point. When he gets there, he meets J.D. (Dirisu), who is the soldier who’s been on the previous assignment.
The Gorge
J.D. explains what he can about why he’s there. Levi will spend a year there, with no phone or internet, only a CB Radio with a once-a-month check-in. There’s a garden and food, so it’s self-contained.
He has to maintain the perimeter of the gorge. There are ‘blockers’ around the edge of it, so satellites and Google Maps can’t see it. There are auto-gun turrets and mines. All need to be checked.
On the other side of the gorge is another tower, one is owned and run by America, the other by the Soviets. Contact between the two towers is forbidden, but we all know what’s going to happen. Drasa is on the other side, looking all hot and lonesome.
J.D. explains that he has no idea what is in the gorge, but they are there to stop things from getting out. He throws in a small grenade and strange noises emerge when it goes off.
Valentine’s Day
Act two was a bit of a worry as this movie came out on Valentine’s Day. The story pans over a few months and Levi is getting on with his task and settled in. Drasa gets drunk because it’s her birthday and puts on some music.
They both have very powerful binoculars and he looks over to her, she’s holding a sign saying “What’s your name?”. He holds up a sign saying “We’re not allowed contact” and the movie ends.
Obviously, they start to interact and Levi gets a rope across to the other side to meet her in person. When they do, they go at it like a couple of rabbits! No, wait, this is a PG-13 movie, they have a pleasant evening talking, dancing and falling in love. They do ‘do the dirty’, but it’s all implied.
On the way back to his side, the rope breaks and Levi falls into the gorge, it’s OK, he’s got a parachute. Drasa gets some gear and jumps in after him.
That’s all I’ll say about the story, but what follows isn’t the best.
Such a Good Idea
In the gorge are what’s called ‘The Hollow Men’. They basically look like extras from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The effects are good and some of the design is great, but that’s about it.
The idea of what’s in the gorge is great, but I think they spoiled it by explaining everything. For me, I like some mystery, hold something back, and keep a little intrigue there. Dean, the ‘writer’, isn’t clever enough to write a movie without explaining it all and I didn’t like it.
If this turned into a straight-up horror, like playing one of the Silent Hill. There was a lot of potential to have weird, creepy monsters trying to take the couple down. Instead, everything is explained and the ending is set for later.
Overall
Derickson is a good director when he’s given a decent script. The Gorge had the opportunity to be a great horror/thriller movie, but instead, it turns into an action movie with a plot that just helps move the plot along.
To get out of the gorge, they find the rope the Levi had break. The size of the place is huge, like miles and miles, long and they just happen to find the rope. How? Because the plot needs it.
As we have said before, the idea of The Gorge is really good, but the execution is just not there. It does have some good moments, but not enough to keep the thin story engaging.
Both Teller and Taylor-Joy are great. I like both actors, they are both picking interesting roles and I will give them a pass for the movie they are in. The chemistry, when it finally kicks in, is good between them.
Again, it’s just the story that lets the story down, that and some of the dodgy CG. Some of the effects are really bad, which is odd, as there was a lot of studios that seems to work on it.
I would say give The Gorge a watch. It’s not terrible and it was an original story for a change. It’s just not that great, you cannot overthink it and everything is explained for the stupid members of the audience.
You might get different mileage out of it, but I give it 2 out of 5 stars. It’s streaming on Apple TV.
