The Gorge

Review: I’m really divided here. I’ll break the film into three segments. The first act is pre-Gorge, the second act is in the Gorge, & the third act is post-Gorge. The first act of this film was brilliant (see High). The third act was okay. The second act was not great. The score was really good & was done by some of the best composers working in Hollywood right now, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. But the writing was not great. There was a lot of just narrating what was going on & very cheesy lines that felt out of place. This is not near the best performance of either Miles Teller or Anya Taylor-Joy, but they had great chemistry when they weren’t together. And I’m being serious.

High: The film was really good when it leaned into the romance from a far & the character dynamics between Taylor-Joy & Teller. Levi (Teller) shouldn’t have crossed across the Gorge so quickly because the film kind of fell apart after that. Seeing them flirt & whatnot from a far was really entertaining. The beginning of the film should’ve been stretched out. I was really enjoying the Taylor Swift ‘You Belong With Me’ sign thing.

Low: This film had the potential to stand out. But it became just a run of the mill sci-fi action film. I think perhaps the movie just moved too fast? And it went from a fun romance movie to adding in aspects of sci-fi, action, horror, monster, & thriller. But the issue is that it doesn’t have enough of any of those things. I’m all for genre bending, but you can’t try to squeeze in so many that none of them work. The action was completely generic. The jeep wench piece was cool. And I felt like there should have been more sniping with how much focus was put on these two being like two of the top snipers in the world. All that said it just kind of fades into basic obscurity. Experiment gone wrong! Heroes watching a video about what happened! Blow it up! I typically am the type that want to see exactly what we’re dealing with & get all the answers, but this film would’ve benefited from some ambiguity surrounding it’s monsters & setting. All of that being said, I’m still giving it a modest score because the first act would’ve been my favorite 2025 film.

Rating: 7.5/10