Charlize Theron plays the latest in a long line of movie characters to confront the harsh realities of the Australian landscape, in Netflix’s empty-calorie action drama Apex – only to discover that the real terror lies in the locals. Just ask John Grant from Wake in Fright or the backpackers in Wolf Creek. In Apex, director Baltasar Kormákur depicts neither the land nor the locals in particularly interesting ways, bathing the former in the glossy, sun-lit sheen of a Mountain Dew commercial and serving up a villain barely distinguishable from the usual backwoods bogeymen.
The film opens by firmly establishing its popcorn survival movie credentials, leaning into “pretty but dangerous” imagery as Theron’s protagonist, Sasha, wakes up in a tent dangling off the side of a mountain. Her unfazed reaction tells us that this vertigo-inducing choice of accommodation was intentional. In the tent, next to her, is hubby and fellow adrenaline fiend, Tommy (Eric Bana), though he’s not long for this world, soon to tumble like a ragdoll into the great beyond.
With the “dramatic backstory” box ticked, the narrative fast-forwards five months as Sasha honours her late husband’s legacy by plunging into more life-or-death situations. As she enters the fictitious Wandarra national park, Mystery Road star Aaron Pedersen pops up to warn her off, stressing the danger ahead: “People get lost in these woods all the time – and here, they stay lost.”
Sasha accepts his advice, heads home, and spends the next 80 minutes nursing a cuppa and staring into a log fire. Kidding, kidding – she ploughs ahead with her doomed adventure, soon encountering riff-raff at the local shops – not quite Deliverance-style yokels, but certainly not to be trusted on matters of dental hygiene or knowledge of Russian literature. One of them is Ben (Taron Egerton), seemingly the nicest of the bunch, who points her toward a secluded camping spot he describes as a “well kept secret”. Sasha is grateful, unaware this is the survival-drama equivalent of taking candy from a stranger.
At this point, it’s only fair to acknowledge that Egerton does a good job speaking convincing Strayan, which is no small feat – the Aussie accent being notoriously difficult to master. (Just ask Quentin Tarantino, whose brief appearance as an ersatz bushranger in Django Unchained is perhaps the most distracting director cameo in movie history.) Ben soon crosses paths with Sasha at that very camping spot, where he shares some fish, engages in a bit of chit-chat, then tells her to run for her life, revealing himself as the film’s Mick Taylor, his scruffy charm curdling into full-blown menace.
All this will come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched Apex’s trailer, which burns through in a minute what the film takes 35 to reveal. At this point it picks up steam, as the cat-and-mouse game begins, Sasha hotfooting it through the park with her psychopathic assailant in pursuit. For a little while, director Kormákur brings some much-needed grunt, the thrill of the chase resulting in some pressure-packed scenes, though the plot always feels boilerplate and the rendering of the Australian landscape equally rote.
Theron, as always, is a reliable choice for a granite-tough, pushed-to-the-brink hero, imbuing the protagonist with flinty resolve, though this feels like very easy work for her; she’s not quite phoning it in, but certainly not stretching herself. One suspects that, for the rest of her action career, she’ll be living in the one-armed shadow of Imperator Furiosa.
It’s hard not to be cynical about movies like Apex, or to second guess its format: a trajectory whereby the steely protagonist with a dramatic backstory narrowly escapes death before eventually turning the tables on their assailant. This is probably why, deep in the runtime, the film pivots to something a little more unexpected (no spoilers), although it feels very much within a templated realm, and doesn’t prevent the pace from sliding in the last act. The whole affair feels slick but soulless, with no personality or – despite the lush settings – any real sense of place.
Apex is on Netflix now
