The Gorge
2025
*
Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, William Houston, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, James Marlowe, Julianna Kurokawa, Ruta Gedmintas, Oliver Trevena
Levi and Drasa, two elite snipers, are assigned to guard towers on opposite sides of a vast gorge, where the Hollow Men live. As time goes on, they form a forbidden connection across the divide and attempt to unravel the true purpose of their mission. Scott Derrickson's romantic science-fiction action film is based on a highly rated screenplay by Zach Dean, which proves to be as good as his previous one for The Tomorrow War. The film is not only stupid but so boring from beginning to end that I kept myself awake by asking silly questions about the plot. Why do both one-person towers have a chess board for two? Why does she have an endless stock of A3-size notebooks? Why does he write poetry in the dark and can he even read it the next day? Where in the northern hemisphere can you dine outdoors in a sleeveless dress in February? What does the evil corporation do to the DNA to create super-soldiers when the Treebeards on horseback can be so easily killed? When the scientist delivers her exposition dump to Levi and Drasa, who filmed the footage, recorded the sound, processed the film, and edited the clip to be projected in 1946 - and why? Most of this ugly-looking film appears to have been shot on a murky sound stage. As for the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, at times I had trouble distinguishing it from the sound effects.
