THE GORGE Review: A Big Swing With a Big Heart

There are several reasons it's disappointing that The Gorge, the most recent, boldly multi-genre film from Sinister and Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson, won't get a theatrical release.

Its striking cinematography, which begins with a phone's light cutting through darkness in a cave and ends with screen-filling multicolored haze, looks great on a big screen. As does the phenomenal production design of its unnatural world that brings to mind a folk horror Silent Hill and (for those who saw it) 2021's Gaia.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's simultaneously alluring and threatening score deserves the best sound systems available. The horror and action sequences are effective and would benefit from communal jumps of shock and sighs of relief. Yet chief among the reasons it's sad people won't get to see this thing in a theater, perhaps surprisingly, is its sweet, funny, and ultimately moving central romance, which would make it a prime option for a Valentine's Day outing (Apple is dropping the film on the 14th of February).

Maybe more surprising than the success of the romance in an action/horror/sci-fi/political thriller/romance from a filmmaker whose last film was a horror movie about child abduction, is that it overcomes an almost laughably pat set up. Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), a Lithuanian assassin handled by Russian intelligence, and Levi (Miles Teller), a depressed and lonely ex-Marine, are posted by their Eastern and Western superpower governments at Eastern and Western watchtowers on either side of the titular gorge.

They're told to never make contact with the other side, yet when Drasa's birthday arrives shortly after they begin their year-long missions, she forces Levi's attention with a gunshot into the air followed by a request (written on a comically large notepad) to not drink alone. What follows is a giggle-inducing montage set to the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" that features references (intentional or not) to its two leads' star-making (or at least star-cementing) performances in Whiplash and The Queen's Gambit. It's the kind of thing that could be easy to dismiss as cheesy, but through the charisma of its stars and Derrickson's control of the film's battling tones, it works.

Of course, things can't remain sweet and romantic. In the middle of their developing romance, with more funny if not entirely original story beats and joyous needle drops (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Spitting Off the Edge of the World" in particular is beautifully deployed), the lovers are plunged into the thick mist covering the mysterious gorge as the result of their romance.

The unique horrors that greet them are a genuine and welcome shock in a film whose most interesting production element to that point has been the large gray watchtowers our heroes made their temporary homes. Reznor and Ross's score shifts into a different register after the change in location as well, layering a sonic "we're not in Kansas anymore" to further unmoor viewers. From here, the movie largely plays out like a video game adaptation, drawing especially from Resident Evil (the games, not the PWSA movies, to be very clear), with big guns, varying creatively designed big and little bads, and some not-so-smoothly integrated exposition drops.

Those exposition drops, an increasingly mission-driven story in the back half, and an unnecessarily tacked on final act (which seems to exist only so Sigourney Weaver as Levi's handler can have more screen time) keep The Gorge from entirely succeeding. But its distinct world (visually if not narratively) and downright delightful rom-com sequences make it worth seeking out for anyone interested in strange creatures and/or unconventional romance movies.

The film premieres globally Friday, February 14, exclusively on Apple TV+.