Movie Review: THE GORGE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 28th, 2025 / 03:10 PM

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, William Houston
Writer: Zach Dean
Director: Scott Derrickson
Distributor: Apple TV+
Release Date: February 14, 2025

THE GORGE has something for everyone, especially monster lovers. We get espionage, romance, sharpshooters, mysteries that mostly have logical answers, and eventually, lots of different kinds of homicidal creatures.

Levi (Miles Teller) is a former U.S. government assassin, now retired, who is called back to service by his old colleague Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver). Bartholomew reaches out to Levi because this is a top-secret year-long job that will have (supposedly) no human contact, and no attachments that would require checking in with loved ones.

Levi is obviously suffering repressed guilt from his previous actions, but there’s nothing repressed about his current profound boredom, so he accepts the mission.

These are the circumstances. There is an extremely deep, long gorge bordering Russian territory. There are towers on either side of the gorge. A Russian operative is in the tower on one side; a NATO representative, soon to be Levi, is in the other. There is supposed to be no communication between the two. Nobody knows what’s in the gorge, but if there is any activity arising from it, the watchers in the towers are supposed to suppress it and notify their respective handlers.

The Russian representative, rotated in at about the same time as Levi, is Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy). She is struggling with her own demons. Naturally, Levi can’t resist trying to engage with her across the gap, literal and figurative, that lays between them.

Teller and Taylor-Joy are both extremely good, easily watchable actors, so we enjoy seeing their characters on their own and then getting to know each other, initially by signals across the gorge and later more inventively. They are convincingly soulful, doubt-ridden, weary and capable.

Weaver of course excels at playing a force not to be trifled with and Sope Dirisu is personable as Levi’s immediate predecessor in the tower.

When there are inevitably some stirrings from the gorge, writer Zach Dean appears to take great delight in concocting a wide variety of menaces, and director Scott Derrickson has both a figurative and literal blast as Levi and Drasa must utilize all their considerable skills in trying to maintain the peace.

As THE GORGE proceeds, we get some fabulous dark fairytale Clive Barker-esque imagery and creations.

There are big logic questions and small ones. Some of the larger ones have to do with where certain technology is placed and why it’s still there. Given that it is there, we are led to expect developments (or at least explanations) that never come.

Smaller matters include why, if Levi isn’t even allowed to bring his wristwatch, Drasa is permitted to bring along a full batch of cosmetics, and why she uses them. (Yeah, we know that she’s inevitably going to interact with Levi, but she doesn’t know that at the start.)

So, THE GORGE has its glitches, but overall, it provides plenty of action/horror fun.

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