Spoilers ahead
You are trapped in an unfamiliar forest with a man you just met, and you are beginning to suspect he is not who he says he is. Run for your life.
This scary scenario is exactly the story of the film “APEX,” which was released on April 24 on Netflix.
The movie starts with Sasha, played by Charlize Theron, and her husband attempting to summit a challenging cliff-side in Norway. However, she is unable to and they decide to head back because of bad weather — only for her husband to fall and die. After she has given up climbing due to the traumatic incident, Sasha finds her way to an Australian forest where she plans to hike and canoe. However, a deranged park ranger named Ben, played by Taron Egerton, begins hunting her in a “Saw”-esque cat-and-mouse game. It is revealed that Ben has been hunting in this park for years and is a cannibalistic-tribilistic-savage. Eventually Sasha gains the upper hand, cripples Ben and kills him by dropping him off the Blue Mountains in Australia, which she has to climb in order to escape. By the end, she is able to summit the mountain, and collapses at the top, symbolizing her overcoming her trauma and escaping this nightmare come to life.
The acting in this movie was quite good on all ends, with Theron and Egerton making the scenes come to life with their realistic portrayal of emotion. Despite Ben being psychotic and creepy, Egerton does a tremendous job humanizing him. The portrayal makes his character still redeemable and almost likable at points. It was sometimes hard to understand Ben’s British accent, but overall the dialogue was pretty easy to follow.
“The villain was really good because [he’s] a natural comedian,” said freshman Aarnav Karki.
The biggest complaint I have is that Sasha’s character was not done enough justice. At times it can be hard to feel attached to Sasha’s character, mainly at the beginning. She is kind of annoying — very self-righteous and not the best decision maker — especially compared to her husband who is calm and reasonable.
The movie is paced well, and I love that it is only 90 minutes, which makes for an easy watch. There were lots of small details that could easily be missed, mainly in dialogue, but not necessary to the plot, which are likely to be picked up during a second watch.
“I thought this movie was … adrenaline pumping [and] pretty fast paced,” said freshman Albert Li. “[It was] pretty good for me. I really liked it.”
Along with the pace, despite being a thriller, the plot made sense. Suspension of disbelief is only required at some points throughout this movie because decisions by characters are logical.
My favorite parts about the movie were the beautiful shots of nature. The opening scene in Norway was picturesque, at a thrilling altitude and an exciting environment for a movie to start. The rest of the movie was filmed in New South Wales, Australia and featured gorgeous wide shots of expansive forest and mountainous terrain, engrossing you into the maze and prison that is the Australian jungle.
Despite the problems with Sasha’s character, this movie gets a lot of points in my book for the way it was filmed due to the length, scenes and pace. And in general, the characters, dialogue and plot made it a solid thriller. This movie is definitely worth watching as it packs a lot into 90 minutes, making it worthy of a four and a half stars out of five stars.
