Reel Rundown: Science fiction fans may delight in ‘The Gorge,’ but dialogue falls short
At first glance, it would seem that the basic concept of the Apple TV+ streaming feature “The Gorge” might be a decent addition to the realm of science-fiction/horror.
After all, in a genre that features zombies, radioactive-enhanced giant reptiles, superheroes of every shape and form, not to mention killer aliens from outer space, how hard is it to accept a secretive, corporate-controlled repository of biochemical engineering gone wrong enough to threaten the whole of humanity?
To be sure, that latter scenario is exactly what director Scott Derrickson, working from a script by Zach Dean, has crafted into his film. And yet … well, we’ll get into that shortly.
Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller star as two elite snipers, she a Lithuanian named Drasa working for Russia, he a former U.S. Marine named Levi. Both have been hired to do a specific yet mysterious job. They are, for a full year, obligated to run twin guard towers set on the upper edges of the cloud-shrouded and ultra-deep gorge that gives the film its name.
They don’t know what they are supposed to be guarding. They’re just supposed to make sure both the various weapons – of which there are many – and any number of sensing devices remain in good working order. All Levi is told by the man he replaces, J.D. (Sope Dirisu), is this: “The Gorge is the door to hell, and we’re standing guard at the gate.”
Yes, that is the level of the dialogue that screenwriter Dean has actually put down for these actors to spout. But, again, more on that shortly.
Oh, and all of this – the towers, the weapons and other devices, in fact the very existence of the gorge itself – is being cloaked so well that no government has any knowledge of the operation. So much for any kind of official oversight (which seems to be all the rage these days).
Finally, they are under strict orders: Under no circumstances are either of them to contact the other tower. That, of course, is a bit of obvious foreshadowing because both characters are lonely, suffering PTSD from careers of killing from long range (we’re told more than once that each is a crack shot).
So what occurs next is obvious: They begin corresponding, they dance and get cute with one another, help each other fend off attacks from creatures, dubbed “Hollow Men” (CGI-created beings that resemble Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy”). Eventually they find a way to meet in person.
It’s only after they do so, and engage in some out-of-focus and brief PG-13-type coupling, that Levi ends up falling into the gorge and Drasa, naturally, goes to his rescue. And it is then that they discover what has been going on since, believe it or not, the end of World War II.
OK, none of that seems too weird, though much of it is derivative (think of the “Alien” franchise). And Derrickson manages to imbue his film with a few crackling action scenes, especially one in a run-down church that involves an attack by what look like rabid spiders and more Hollow Men.
What makes the difference, though, is the lines that each of the actors delivers – even “Alien” franchise veteran Sigourney Weaver, who plays the woman who hires Levi.
Lines such as this one from Levi: “You bury enough secrets, the graveyard runs out of room.” Or this exchange between the two about the gorge itself: “It was so surreal down there,” Drasa says, “like a waking nightmare.” To which Levi replies, “That’s as close to hell as I ever want to get.”
Whatever happened to lines like the one that Weaver’s character Ripley famously recites in James Cameron’s “Aliens”? The one where, encased in a power loader, her character – trying to protect the young girl Newt – confronts the alien queen and yells, “Get away from her, you (expletive)!”
OK, it’s not Shakespeare. But for the scene itself, it’s far more effective than anything Dean troubled to dream up for “The Gorge.”