The Gorge movie review & film summary (2025) – Roger Ebert

ReviewsScott Derrickson’s “The Gorge” is a drive-in B-movie that most people will watch at home in the middle of winter. It’s the new normal for movies that feel like they demand a massive screen and booming sound system to be watched at home, but there is something a little dispiriting about how differently this film would play with a crowd than it probably does on a phone. It’s a throwback to goofy action movies that don’t get made at this budget level that often anymore, a time when major studios would release an original flick about massive sandworms in the desert or J. Lo and Ice Cube fighting a giant snake. To that end, despite a clunky set-up, “The Gorge” delivers on its potential. Just make sure you turn it up loud enough to annoy the neighbors.Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) are elite snipers from different world powers who have been assigned to guard the titular location, a massive gorge in an undisclosed country. Derrickson and writer Zach Dean would have been smarter to drop us right into the middle of their assignment because the opening act of “The Gorge” is easily the weakest section of the film, giving us backstory for Levi and Drasa that we don’t really need. The pair of performers are naturally charismatic enough for us to invest in their well-being without knowing about Levi’s PTSD or Drasa’s dying father before we meet them. It does allow Derrickson to give Sigourney Weaver a small role as Levi’s superior and waste the excellent Sope Dirisu on an exposition dump of a role as the guy that Levi replaces. However, there’s a two-hander version of this movie that’s even better than what we get here.Dirisu’s doomed soldier explains the assignment to Levi and the audience: Guard the gorge, not from outsiders but from what might come out of it. He explains his theory that the gorge is the door to Hell, and their job is to keep watch over it, gunning down the creatures known as “Hollow Men” that emerge from within. There are numerous weapons and bombs rigged on the walls of the gorge and a counterpart on the other side. Levi’s lucky enough that his partner in gorge guarding is the gorgeous Drasa, with whom he begins a courtship across the chasm. As Levi is stoic and strict in his routine, Drasa is the opposite: playful and lively. She starts her cross-gorge flirtations by playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” at top volume and challenging Levi to a shooting contest. Levi arguably drops his well-trained guard too quickly, but we have a movie to get to.Clearly directed to give our pair a sort of “opposites attract” dynamic, Teller finds a sort of noble calm under pressure while Taylor-Joy sketches a more free-spirited chaos agent. They lack a bit in the chemistry department, but they’re such likable performers that they carry the script over a few of its shallow (sorry) patches. It’s hard not to roll your eyes at lines like “You bury enough secrets the graveyard runs out of room,” but it’s a testament to Teller and Taylor-Joy’s likability that the dialogue doesn’t sink the production. It almost adds a sort of quirky charm. After all, we don’t come to B-movies for the poetry.Before you know it, the philosophical Levi has fallen in love with Drasa, and vice versa. And then “The Gorge” really kicks into gear. Without spoiling anything, Derrickson’s film becomes the one that it feels like he’s most interested in, involving crazy set pieces and wicked creature design, all set to another phenomenal score from Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor. The team behind the “Challengers” soundtrack (still maybe the biggest Oscar snub of the year) delivers another excellent score that elevates this film’s action in a manner that shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s the fuel that really drives this action movie.And when it’s driving, it’s a blast. At its best, it recalls some of the anarchic horror-action energy that made Sam Raimi a genre star in the ‘80s. (An ironic inspiration given Raimi took over for Derrickson in the “Doctor Strange” franchise.) There’s a wonderfully chaotic sequence involving a jeep and waves of enemies that’s so Raimi-esque that I expected Bruce Campbell to jump out and save the day. (This is a compliment, by the way.) We need more action that doesn’t feel sanded down by CGI and focus groups, stuff that feels honestly unhinged in a way that too few studios are willing to risk in the 2020s.“The Gorge” takes too long in its set-up and rushes its ending in a manner that’s unsatisfying, but when it’s really humming during the initial flirtation and in the action-heavy mid-section, it lives up to its genre-mashing potential. Dean’s script takes elements of horror, action, sci-fi, and romance and puts them in a blender. The mixture may get a bit muddled at times, but it’s still pretty satisfying in a way that the blockbusters that actually make it to theaters nowadays rarely are.On Apple TV+ now.Now streaming on:Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Source: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-gorge-movie-review-2025