Visually, the film was stunning; the Australian scenery was beautiful, and the cinematography captured the vastness of the outback perfectly. Unfortunately, the writing completely failed to match the visuals. The dialogue was terrible, the plot was utterly predictable from the start, and the script was riddled with logical holes. In fact, the entire "hunting humans in the wilderness" setup paired with Egerton's bizarre energy unexpectedly channeled major The Pest vibes, though completely missing that movie's intentional comedy. While the movie attempted to tackle heavy themes like grief, psychological endurance, and facing your fears, it never built real suspense. You never genuinely worried about the protagonist's survival because the stakes lacked tension.
The performances were equally mixed. Even in the worst of projects, Charlize Theron still managed to keep my attention with her star power presence. This film was no different, as she was undeniably impressive here, executing almost all of her own high-intensity stunts. She trained for over two months with professional climber Beth Rodden to scale real, jagged cliffs in the Outback and repeatedly leaped off a cliff into a pool below without a stunt double. Meanwhile, Taron Egerton’s performance struggled; his forced Australian accent was incredibly distracting, and his villainous character registered more as weirdly awkward than genuinely sinister or threatening.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it seemed like Theron is becoming heavily typecast in these physically demanding, survival-driven roles. This Netflix-released project was put out by her own production company, Denver and Delilah, the same team behind The Old Guard, and it is unfortunate that her produced films continue to miss the mark. Ultimately, Apex stands as another highly-produced Netflix movie with great actors that simply isn't worth the watch.
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