The last film that I saw from director Baltasar Kormákur was the disappointing effort that had Idris Elba fighting against an angry lion. If I had remembered that he was responsible for that then I may have been a bit less excited to see Apex, but I was excited by a trailer that showed me Taron Egerton working with an Australian accent and telling Charlize Theron that he was about to hunt her. Thankfully, while nothing spectacular, Apex just about does enough with the main premise to make it an enjoyable and satisfying thriller. It's very predictable, almost everything in the first main sequence is used to set up moments later in the movie, it skirts around the darker elements, and most of it really stretches the limits of credulity, but it's tense and fun throughout.
Theron plays Sasha, an adventurous woman who ends up in a particularly perilous part of Australia. After trying to ignore some local hunters (who claim that they're just being nice, of course), Sasha meets the pleasant and friendly Ben (Egerton). And then Ben turns a bit less friendly.
The first feature screenplay from Jeremy Robbins, this is a solid slice of entertainment that benefits from decent stunts, good special effects, and a willingness to skirt much closer to some surprisingly dark content than I expected. It also helps that Theron and Egerton are the focus for 90% of the runtime.
Director Baltasar Kormákur has a filmography that shows him trying to deliver a popular hit every 4 or 5 years, and this is the right time for his latest attempt to appeal to a large mainstream audience. The 95-minute runtime allows for it to be paced well, and you get a classic opening sequence that sets up a main character and one or two challenges you know will be revisited before the end of the movie, and the central premise is handled with just the right mix of danger and excitement. I was enjoyably dizzy during some of the more vertiginous sequences, and that sensation was helped by the thought of both leads being capable of at least trying some of the daring climbing and swimming on display.
Theron can do this kind of thing easily, and she does. She's tough and capable throughout, but also carries a core of pain and insecurity stemming from that tense opener. There may be one or two times that you want to shout at the screen while her character misses some opportunity to stay ahead of the game, but she's generally working with patience and intelligence to give herself the best chance of survival. Egerton has a blast, and doesn't do too bad with the Australian accent either. Whether being nice and pleasant in his earlier scenes, dancing to his tunes while he gives Theron's character a head start, or spitting out dialogue that enforces the idea of him being far removed from sanity, he's a great movie villain.
There could have been a few things added here (maybe some animal encounters, a bigger selection of potential victims, etc), but I generally appreciate what we got. It's an enjoyable thriller that sets everything up, allows it all to play out as you generally expect, and then cuts to the end credits before overstaying its welcome.
7/10
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