Apex debuts on Netflix on April 24.
If there’s one thing Charlize Theron knows how to do, it’s pack a punch. As Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, she gave Tom Hardy’s eponymous lead a run for his money, hot-wheeling across a barren sandscape and taking out several heavies along the way. In Atomic Blonde, her MI6 agent Lorraine proves a formidable spy, brutally dispatching KGB operatives in a 10-minute single-take fight scene even after receiving several pummeling hits. Throw in The Old Guard and Fast and Furious franchises, and Theron has come to epitomize a strong female character not to be messed with – an ultimate fighting force with heart that has been met with uproarious adulation from audiences.
With Apex, her new survival actioner, she’s taken a somewhat softer approach to this story of a woman fighting for her life in a game of cat-and-mouse set against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. That’s not to say her character, Sasha, is soft; she’s a thrill-seeking outdoorswoman who pushes herself to nature’s limit by scaling perilous mountains and kayaking down thrashing rivers. But she’s not a highly-trained fighter, or imbued with immortal strength, making the stakes that much higher once she’s targeted by a sadistic hunter.
Sasha is introduced three-quarters of the way up Norway’s Troll Wall, the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, with her husband Tommy (Eric Bana). The pair have an easy chemistry, offering the sort of lived-in banter of a couple who have been adventuring for years. Tommy is feeling a little less optimistic about reaching the summit; the weather is turning for the worse, Sasha is rushing the climb, and he’s lacking confidence. If you’ve seen Vertical Limit or Cliffhanger, you can guess what happens next – a nail-biting yet devastating scene where director Baltasar Kormákur effectively utilizes the immersive camerawork he honed on 2015’s Everest. It’s a shame that the film is going straight to Netflix rather than being shared on the big screen, where the extremities of nature versus the fragility of humanity could have been experienced in full force. Such is the dominance of streaming, I guess.
We next meet Sasha in Australia. Theron shifts into a stoic, guarded register, capturing the grief of not just losing someone you love, but a part of yourself. She’s on her way to the fictional Wandarra National Park to find solace down a rapid river route, but is warned by a park ranger that people have disappeared out there. Screenwriter Jeremy Robbins doesn’t waste time planting seeds of foreboding with a corkboard overflowing with missing persons flyers and a couple of sleazy locals vying for Sasha’s attention. However, even after an intensely uncomfortable camp scene where the danger of being a lone woman blocked in by strange men is keenly felt, they’re not the ones Sasha really needed to worry about.
It’s not often we see Taron Egerton in an antagonistic role; the last time was in the 2015 biopic, Legend, where he played a volatile and violent associate of the infamous gangster Kray twins. Here, as Aussie backwoodsman Ben, he oscillates between sweetness and savagery to unsettling effect. It doesn’t take long to work out his ulterior motives. Robbins gives us a clue early on, and he’s just that little bit too friendly to Sasha; his “gone native” backstory is a little flimsy too. Still, by the time she works out that he’s lured her down a secluded river route so he can hunt her to her death, the plot goes full throttle into an exciting and gripping chase across land and water.
The stuntwork is impeccable with Theron, who did a significant amount of it herself, diving headfirst into every sequence. She kayaks through turbulent river rapids, sometimes plunging into the racing water while handcuffed and trying to escape her foe. She scrambles up and down rock faces and scurries through the lusciously dense forest as Ben sets traps and his crossbow sights on her. It’s intensely exhausting to watch Sasha and Ben go head-to-head, but refreshingly believable to comprehend her survival instincts. Sure, she’s a natural athlete, but she’s up against a psychotic man of the woods in unknown terrain. Brute strength won’t save Sasha – her brain will – so it’s all the more satisfying to watch a quick-thinking woman survive a deranged predator by flexing that muscle instead.
Cinematographer Lawrence Sher does an admirable job, seamlessly capturing the looming beauty and elemental danger of the Blue Mountain region where it was largely shot. Even in quieter moments of reflection, from shadowy blue night to a grimy cave dwelling and pink-tinged skies, Apex captures the tumultuous emotional journey of its hero and the disturbing proclivities of its villain. It’s a wild ride, with Theron once again cementing herself as one of cinema’s most versatile action stars.
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