The Gorge (2025)

 

The Gorge (2025)

4/10 

Starring

Miles Teller

Anya Taylor-Joy

Sigourney Weaver

 

Directed by Scott Derrickson

 

By the time you are almost twenty minutes into the movie, you get the idea that there is something, evil in the gorge that should not come out of it. That idea is set in your mind, and now we have to see how this movie moves, from thriller, to romance, to horror and then Sci-Fi.

The gorge for me has an uneven pacing, first it starts slow, we get excited when the two leads start to interact, we get a taste of action, then we are back to another slow pacing.

The CGI and action is good, and you will like the idea of how the hollow men are designed. but the movie as a whole kind of disappoints. It sets you up for something amazing, but then the genre jumps and the lackluster writing which shows up in the middle just mars what could have been a fantastic movie, because the idea and initial setup is very good.

The plot is about two elite snipers, each positioned on either side of a deep gorge without knowing what lies beneath them. On one side is an American, Levi (Miles Teller) guarding the west sid eand on the other side is a Lithuanian named Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) working for Russia, guarding the east side.

This job is covert, and as we learn from the person who debrief Levi when he takes his post, it has been in operation since around the second world war, and in the gorge is something called the hollow men. Nobody knows about this, and he will be in the position for a year, with no contact with anyone, and he is not to contact the east side also.

The problem is, both Levi and Darsa start to spy on each other and soon, they start to contact one another, talking using signs. Very soon, they form a sort of relationship.

We do get to see the creatures coming out of the gorge early on in the movie, and Levi and Darsa shoot them down, and these creatures do look human like.

From here, Levi and Darsa become romantically involved, and Levi broke the rules and zip line to see her. After spending time together, and he tries to zip line back, he falls into the gorge. It is from here the movie takes a turn, and we go straight to Sci Fi. I am skipping things here not to drop spoilers.

Miles Teller, who for me did not deliver a strong enough performance to carry the idea of a mercenary with a past that hunts him. While Anya Taylor-Joy, outshines in her role as a covert military operations officer. Making Miles the central focus of the movie as the lead, is not the best decision the filmmakers made. Another bad decision is not giving Sigourney Weaver enough screen time, because she was amazing in the short time we see her, and she gives you the meanacing idea that she is more focused on the task of keeping the gorge a secret and keeping what is in it away from humans.

I think the movie is watchable, it is not amazing or memorable, but it was not bad.