Apex review: Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton anchor an underwritten survival thriller
Charlize Theron plays a thrill-seeker hunted through an Australian national park in Apex. The film sets up a tense survival duel but rarely finds the writing or menace to deepen it.
Baltasar Kormkur’s Apex arrives with a clean, familiar survival-thriller setup: a fearless woman heads into the Australian wilderness and finds herself being hunted. Charlize Theron plays Sasha, an adrenaline addict who lives for risk, and the film wastes little time in showing that she is most at home when she is closest to danger. The premise is direct and workable, but the film never does enough with it, either as a tense chase story or as a more layered drama.
That is the central problem with Apex. It has the shape of a sharp predator-becomes-prey thriller, and for a while it promises a bruising battle between a determined survivor and a menacing local. But what follows feels too routine, too glossy and too thinly written to leave much impact. Even when the chase finally kicks in, the film struggles to rise above the feeling of a standard actioner moving through a list of familiar beats.
The opening sets Sasha up efficiently. She wakes in a tent hanging off the side of a mountain, entirely unfazed by the vertigo-inducing arrangement. Beside her is her husband Tommy, played by Eric Bana, who is as fond of danger as she is. The film quickly establishes their appetite for extreme adventure before tragedy strikes and Tommy falls to his death. Five months later, Sasha is still pushing herself into high-risk situations, now turning to kayaking and other dangerous pursuits as she tries to carry on in the spirit of the life they shared.
Her latest trip takes her to the fictitious Wandarra national park in Australia. There, a character played by Aaron Pedersen warns her plainly about the place, telling her, “People get lost in these woods all the time – and here, they stay lost.”
It is the kind of warning that survival films are built on, and Sasha ignores it just as the genre demands. She presses on, stops at local shops, and encounters a rough group of men who immediately look like bad news. Among them is Ben, played by Taron Egerton, who appears to be the friendliest of the lot and directs her to a secluded camping spot he calls a “well-kept secret”.
Watch the film's trailer here:
The film draws out this reveal for a while, though anyone who has seen the trailer will already be ahead of it. Ben later turns up at Sasha’s campsite, shares some fish, makes small talk, and then abruptly tells her to run for her life. It is the moment when his easy charm turns into menace, and the film finally settles into the cat-and-mouse mode it has been building towards. From there, Sasha tears through the park with Ben in pursuit, and Kormkur does generate some urgency in stretches of the chase.
Even so, Apex rarely escapes the pull of its own formula. It follows the hunter-and-hunted pattern so closely that it often feels less like a tightly designed thriller and more like a checklist of genre requirements.
There is the dramatic backstory, the warning ignored, the suspicious locals, the isolated campsite, the reveal of the real threat, and the inevitable struggle to turn the tables. Later, the film shifts slightly in a direction that is meant to feel unexpected, but it still stays within a very familiar template and does not stop the final act from losing momentum.
Charlize Theron remains watchable throughout. She brings Sasha the flinty determination the role needs, and she is convincing as a woman who can absorb punishment and keep moving. But the part never asks much more of her than toughness, and the performance feels more competent than inspired.
Taron Egerton, meanwhile, deserves credit for handling the Australian accent with ease, which is no small task. The film itself even invites a brief detour into that thought, with the comparison to Quentin Tarantino’s distracting bushranger-style appearance in Django Unchained. Egerton’s Ben is not especially original as a villain, but the actor gives him enough surface charm to make the switch into threat land cleanly.
As for the setting, Apex has access to striking terrain but does not turn it into much more than a backdrop. The Australian landscape is photographed in a glossy, sunlit way that makes it look polished rather than dangerous, and the local menace is presented in terms that feel generic.
The film nods towards a tradition of stories in which outsiders confront the harshness of the Australian wild, only to realise the greater danger comes from the people around them, but it never gives either the land or the locals much distinct identity. For all the lush scenery, there is very little sense of place.
That leaves Apex as a slick but hollow film: efficient in setup, briefly engaging in pursuit, and increasingly predictable as it runs on. There are moments of pressure and movement, and Theron’s presence keeps it from completely drifting away, but the script remains too vacant to make the experience thrilling.
For viewers who want a straightforward survival chase with a dependable star at the centre, there may be just enough here. For everyone else, Apex is likely to feel like a film with a workable idea that never finds the writing, personality or tension to fully deliver on it.
Baltasar Kormkur’s Apex arrives with a clean, familiar survival-thriller setup: a fearless woman heads into the Australian wilderness and finds herself being hunted. Charlize Theron plays Sasha, an adrenaline addict who lives for risk, and the film wastes little time in showing that she is most at home when she is closest to danger. The premise is direct and workable, but the film never does enough with it, either as a tense chase story or as a more layered drama.
That is the central problem with Apex. It has the shape of a sharp predator-becomes-prey thriller, and for a while it promises a bruising battle between a determined survivor and a menacing local. But what follows feels too routine, too glossy and too thinly written to leave much impact. Even when the chase finally kicks in, the film struggles to rise above the feeling of a standard actioner moving through a list of familiar beats.
The opening sets Sasha up efficiently. She wakes in a tent hanging off the side of a mountain, entirely unfazed by the vertigo-inducing arrangement. Beside her is her husband Tommy, played by Eric Bana, who is as fond of danger as she is. The film quickly establishes their appetite for extreme adventure before tragedy strikes and Tommy falls to his death. Five months later, Sasha is still pushing herself into high-risk situations, now turning to kayaking and other dangerous pursuits as she tries to carry on in the spirit of the life they shared.
Her latest trip takes her to the fictitious Wandarra national park in Australia. There, a character played by Aaron Pedersen warns her plainly about the place, telling her, “People get lost in these woods all the time – and here, they stay lost.”
It is the kind of warning that survival films are built on, and Sasha ignores it just as the genre demands. She presses on, stops at local shops, and encounters a rough group of men who immediately look like bad news. Among them is Ben, played by Taron Egerton, who appears to be the friendliest of the lot and directs her to a secluded camping spot he calls a “well-kept secret”.
Watch the film's trailer here:
The film draws out this reveal for a while, though anyone who has seen the trailer will already be ahead of it. Ben later turns up at Sasha’s campsite, shares some fish, makes small talk, and then abruptly tells her to run for her life. It is the moment when his easy charm turns into menace, and the film finally settles into the cat-and-mouse mode it has been building towards. From there, Sasha tears through the park with Ben in pursuit, and Kormkur does generate some urgency in stretches of the chase.
Even so, Apex rarely escapes the pull of its own formula. It follows the hunter-and-hunted pattern so closely that it often feels less like a tightly designed thriller and more like a checklist of genre requirements.
There is the dramatic backstory, the warning ignored, the suspicious locals, the isolated campsite, the reveal of the real threat, and the inevitable struggle to turn the tables. Later, the film shifts slightly in a direction that is meant to feel unexpected, but it still stays within a very familiar template and does not stop the final act from losing momentum.
Charlize Theron remains watchable throughout. She brings Sasha the flinty determination the role needs, and she is convincing as a woman who can absorb punishment and keep moving. But the part never asks much more of her than toughness, and the performance feels more competent than inspired.
Taron Egerton, meanwhile, deserves credit for handling the Australian accent with ease, which is no small task. The film itself even invites a brief detour into that thought, with the comparison to Quentin Tarantino’s distracting bushranger-style appearance in Django Unchained. Egerton’s Ben is not especially original as a villain, but the actor gives him enough surface charm to make the switch into threat land cleanly.
As for the setting, Apex has access to striking terrain but does not turn it into much more than a backdrop. The Australian landscape is photographed in a glossy, sunlit way that makes it look polished rather than dangerous, and the local menace is presented in terms that feel generic.
The film nods towards a tradition of stories in which outsiders confront the harshness of the Australian wild, only to realise the greater danger comes from the people around them, but it never gives either the land or the locals much distinct identity. For all the lush scenery, there is very little sense of place.
That leaves Apex as a slick but hollow film: efficient in setup, briefly engaging in pursuit, and increasingly predictable as it runs on. There are moments of pressure and movement, and Theron’s presence keeps it from completely drifting away, but the script remains too vacant to make the experience thrilling.
For viewers who want a straightforward survival chase with a dependable star at the centre, there may be just enough here. For everyone else, Apex is likely to feel like a film with a workable idea that never finds the writing, personality or tension to fully deliver on it.
