So I've already failed in that regard for Apex. But then again, issuing a SPOILER WARNING about Apex would have created that failure, if I had not already created it. (In case you missed it, this is an actual SPOILER WARNING for Apex, so heed it accordingly.)
I just wrote my review of Apex. It'll be last night by the time I post this, but as I write this, I just finished writing it.
And in this review, I was so careful to protect the spoilers that I essentially lied to my readers.
It's not quite how it sounds. Let me explain.
Apex, Baltasar Kormakur's new movie on Netflix that stars Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton, has a setup that should be quite familiar to most moviegoers. It's such a familiar setup that I needn't cite another recent example, but the movie Fall from a couple years ago, about the two women who get themselves stranded at the top of an impossibly tall radio tower they've climbed to seek thrills, is a good example. It's the sort of film where the main character has an opening tragedy in which they lose a loved one in some disaster related to extreme sports -- climbing is usually the culprit, as it is in both these films -- before having to address the main, second nightmare scenario, also involving some sort of extreme sports. Cliffhanger was this movie also, and I believe there have been 782 others in the history of cinema.
Apex has a second template for the sort of movie it is, though, and that template is one I name-checked in the review. It profiles as the sort of exploitation movie where a character (usually a woman) is wronged, and then goes about systematically killing all the people who wronged her. And that movie I name-checked was I Spit On Your Grave.
The thing is, Apex only wants you to think it is a version of I Spit On Your Grave. It isn't.
Oh yes, it introduces us to a bunch of malevolent toxic males who would be Theron's tormentors in a movie like that. They're Australian outback hunters who pay too much attention to her and whose threats toward her person are palpable.
The thing is, these hunters are red herrings, and they disappear from the narrative after the first 15 minutes. This film's apex predator is actually Taron Egerton, who is introduced to us as the only nice guy in the outback who might have Charlize's back if the hunters overstep. Only he's the psycho killer who psychs himself up for hunting Theron down by listening to the Chemical Brothers' song "Go," in what was a terrific scene.
Baltasar Kormakur and company don't want me to reveal this in my review. So of course I didn't.
But that means I had to set up those poor, unrefined and definitely misogynistic hunters, who are all bark and no bite, as the straw men villains for my entire review.
Witness lines like this:
"It may be that Ben [Egerton's character] is the only one who will help stand in the way of the predators who are hunting her."
And this:
"This means that we want her to emerge victorious on her own terms, not due to her adversaries flubbing some kind of advantage they had. Yet flub they do, such that there are a number of times when she would have been dead if their only goal were to kill her, thereby ending the equal threat she poses to them. That she gets to live through these moments of her tormentors’ advantage is not quite the same as villain grandstanding and speechifying, but it’s close enough to leave a sour taste in your mouth. Our ideal Sasha emerges from this because she outsmarted adversaries who were doing their damnedest to kill her at their earliest opportunity."
Theron has only one adversary in this film, but if I told my readers that, they wouldn't be surprised when "nice guy Taron Egerton" turns out to be a cannibalistic psychopath. (Sorry, probably didn't need to reveal the cannibalism part, but I'm assuming you've only read this far if you've seen the movie or if you don't care if I spoil it.)
Oh, and while we're at it, here was my one "dog whistle" that suggested the possible spoilers:
"The fundamental setup of Apex is too obvious by half, but without getting into too many details, let’s just say it doesn’t stay that way."
The full review will be linked to the right if you check back later, or possibly now, depending on when you are reading this.
My whole approach in this review is, in a way, an abdication of the unspoken pact I have with my readers. I theory, a critic is on the side of the readers, cutting through the ways the filmmaker is trying to manipulate you into having a certain experience, if we think that experience isn't worthy or if there is a sort of deception in what they are trying to accomplish.
But we also want to help a filmmaker succeed when they are manipulating the viewer in a positive way, in other words, in a way that will deepen your overall experience, possibly/probably by surprising you. And that's what Kormkaur and company are doing here.
I did believe, as they wanted me to, that Egerton would be the guy who helped Theron survive the lethal ambitions of the scuzzy outback hunters, and even when he was revealed to be a creep, I thought he'd at least be in league with those hunters. As it turns out, the scuzzy hunters are just a bunch of blowhards who don't like having a woman throw their attentions back in their faces. But they aren't going to do anything about it, and in fact, they disappear from the narrative entirely. (I did think it might have been a smart move if, at the end, when Theron inevitably needs a ride back to civilization, she gets one from one of these hunters, thereby proving that you can't always judge a book by its cover. Instead she gets picked up by a couple of nice young women, which is definitely safer, both in terms of her personal safety and the message of the movie, but probably less interesting overall.)
In any case, I was happy to keep Apex's secrets, even if it meant I had to write my review in such a way as to conspire with the filmmakers on their red herring. When they've earned it, I want to be there to help.
They didn't earn it big time in the case of Apex. I'm still only giving the movie three out of five stars, or 6/10 on the ReelGood scale. But it definitely got my pulse pounding on occasion, and was a worthy genre exercise.
The thing is, even if Apex didn't earn a marginally positive review from me, I still think I'd do my best not to blow up the filmmakers' attempt to fool us with a red herring.
I just wouldn't be as willing of a conspirator.
No comments:
Post a Comment