On Screen: “The Gorge”
The Gorge
“The Gorge” is a remote, fog-shrouded place that the most powerful nations of the world are determined to keep secret. Ever since the end of WWII, it’s been guarded by enormous watchtowers perched on opposite sides.
This sci-horror thriller begins as two elite, world-class snipers are chosen to maintain and protect the huge, remote chasm. On the Eastern European side, there’s Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), a renowned markswoman from Lithuania, and on the Western side, there’s Levi (Miles Teller), an experienced American assassin who stealthily moves from the military to contract work.
Accepting this cloaked assignment involves a year-long commitment with no technology: no Wi-Fi, no phones, no communication with the outside world. Only a radio check-in with their respective headquarters every 30 days. They have no idea where they are on the globe and are forbidden to contact one another.
But they do have high-tech binoculars — so the inevitable happens. She sees him; he sees her. The only hitch is that hideous, ravenous monsters — dubbed ‘The Hollow Men’ from a T.S. Eliot poem — keep surfacing from the depths of the mysterious abyss, trying to scale the steep walls, requiring Drasa and Levi to utilize all of their weaponized experience just to stay alive.
“The Gorge is the door to hell … you need to stop what’s there from coming out!” That’s really all you need to know.
Cleverly scripted by Zach Dean (“The Tomorrow War”), who manages to mesh sci-fi horror with romance, and inventively directed by Scott Derrickson (“Doctor Strange”), it’s a fun and frightening excursion into a chilling genetic mystery — packed with quirky historical twists, screwy sci-fi science and relentless, radioactive action.
The chemistry clicks between Anya Taylor-Joy (“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “The Queen’s Gambit”) and Miles Taylor (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Whiplash”) with additional menace emanating from a cold-blooded paramilitary spook played by Sigourney Weaver.
Full disclosure: My son, Don Granger, was one of the producers.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Gorge” is an exciting, explosive, engaging 8, streaming on Apple TV+.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.