Her next activity is to kayak a dangerous river alone in rural Australia. But creepy local men interfere, and one of them, Ben (Taron Egerton), turns out to be a serial killer intent on hunting her down, and making her his next victim.
How others will see it. Apex was briefly the number one most searched film at JustWatch.com, and it spent about three weeks inside the top ten. Today at imdb.com, months after its release, it is still in the top 100 most popular films.
So, people are watching it. But the reception is mixed. The imdb.com user rating is 6.1 out of 10, okay but not great. The user reviews tend to be negative: the acting and cinematography is praised, but the story, script, characters, and direction are generally criticized. Some are unimpressed by the character of the sociopathic villain, saying it is too derivative of other films.
How I felt about it. While the typical viewer appears moderately disappointed upon seeing Apex, it was a different story for me. I liked most all of it: the leads, the cinematography, the direction, and the screenplay. Theron trained extensively for the role, rock climbing and kayaking, and this makes her surprisingly convincing.
One can certainly argue that as a serial killer, Ben is cinematic instead of realistic. He would not repeatedly give her additional chances to survive. He would simply kill her upon first opportunity, then rape her corpse. But that would make the film an hour shorter, and not much fun for audiences, who of course want to see Theron triumph over her tormentor.
A native of Iceland, director Kormákur is best
known within that country. There, his films have been repeatedly
recognized by the Edda Awards, Iceland's equivalent of the Oscars. He won
Best Screenplay for 101 Reykjavik (2001),
Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay for The Sea (2002),
Best Film and Best Director for Jar City (2006),
Best Film for White Night Wedding (2008),
Best Director for
Outside of Iceland, Kormákur has also had success as a director. Everest
(2015) has nearly 250K user votes at imdb.com, with Guns (2013) not far
behind. His next four most popular films are Contraband (2012), Apex
(2026), Adrift (2018), and Beast (2022). It looks like Kormákur
has found a formula that works: single word film titles. Given the quality of
Apex, I will try to sample all these films to see if any merit a full watch.
The Apex writer, Jeremy Robbins, has a much smaller and less impressive
resumá, so it appears that Kormákur deserves the lion's share of credit for
the quality of Apex. True, Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton (who played
Elton John in Rocketman) are excellent here. But they thrive under Kormákur's
direction.