'Apex' Should Be A Survival Guilty Pleasure, But Never Gets There

Robert Frost once said, “The only way out is through,” and that is the core of Baltasar Kormákur’s survival thriller “Apex” – a 90-minute film that is simplistic by design and not formulated for staying power. Within it are two major obstacles the protagonist has to overcome: grief and a maniac hellbent on ensuring Australian vacationers have the opposite experience to that painted by Men At Work’s 1980s hit, “Down Under.” Sasha (Charlize Theron) and Tommy (Eric Bana) are a thrillseeking couple who find their next bucket list stop scaling a massive mountain in Norway. Theron’s character is a little impulsive, looking to get to the top as quickly as possible. Tommy, well, he’s grown a little more cautious.

In fact, Tommy is starting to grow weary of taking these trips at all. This epiphany serves as the ultimate kiss of death for his character, as a slight miscalculation sends him tumbling to a rocky grave. Sasha is stuck with the sadness of losing her love and the guilt of cutting the cord. There’s an ambiguity in which Theron’s character moves as to what she’s grappling with in terms of that decision. On the surface, it was to stay alive. Anyone can level with that. On a metaphorical emotional level, it’s not as clear. Is Sasha giving up on her love of death-defying feats entirely? Writer Jeremy Robbins elects to make motivations and potential internal struggles more muted at the service of action.

Five months later, Sasha is in Wandarra National Park, Australia, for a hike that is less perilous than her previous adventures. But a park ranger lets her know she might want to think twice. There’s a huge swath of people who have gone missing in the area. Some local men give Sasha a hard time in that “you must not be from around here” manner. Thankfully, a stranger named Ben (a manically effective Taron Egerton) is around to give her directions. However, it’s not the direct path to Grand Isle Narrows. Oh no, you have to start at Blackwater Bay to take in the “well-kept secret” of an amazing camping area.

Come to find out, Ben is a bit of a psychopathic hunter, and Sasha’s hope for a tranquil break devolves into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. Like a football player playing their hype up song before a big game, Ben has his own ritual. He gives Sasha the amount of time it takes for The Chemical Brothers’ “Go” to finish before he takes his bow and arrow to terrorize his new game. The structure that makes “Apex” somewhat enjoyable is present, and it comes from Kormákur’s thirst for propulsive action within the first two acts of the film. Ben seems to have every nook and cranny of the forests and rivers figured out, while Sasha tries to use her knowledge to thwart him.

Egerton is menacing in this role, as Ben’s demeanor is not to make a quick demise of his new prey, but to torture her psychologically and physically. Yet, he’s still nice enough to offer her his homemade beef jerky named after his mother. To spare you the details, there’s definitely something macabre and downright wretched in what he does with his would-be victims. But when “Apex” makes overtures to dive into what has caused this break in Ben’s mind, it pulls back to remember why he’s here in the first place. Sasha has a clear, defined purpose from the very beginning, and it’s a rocky, bloody, talkative, winding road to get there.

“Apex” didn’t have to be so complicated. Theron and Egerton are good enough on their own to carry a breezy, action-oriented film to an enjoyable end. But the film can’t decide whether it wants us to feel for its heroine’s complicated feelings about loss, hate its antagonist completely, or hold our breath at set pieces that often grow repetitive. Maybe it’s all three, but then you realize the move is over by the time you decide.