SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away most of the plot of The Gorge so, if you have not seen the new sci-fi movie, I recommend you tread lightly as we dive in.
The Gorge gave me the latest of many reasons to be glad I got myself an Apple TV+ subscription recently. That reason being that if I had to pay extra to watch director Scott Derrickson’s new horror movie with a romantic, sci-fi edge, I might have been even more disappointed in it than I was.
Now, to be clear, I did enjoy the new 2025 movie about two special operatives (played by Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy) falling in love while guarding a mysterious valley as I watched it. However, by the end, I felt that the story was not given enough time to reach its full potential as a feature film and, perhaps, would have worked better if stretched out to, maybe, six episodes. Allow me to better explain why I think The Gorge very easily could have been one of the best Apple TV+ original TV shows instead of a passable Apple TV+ original movie.
More Time To Develop Levi And Drasa’s Romance
I believe The Gorge comes close to being an even better love story than a thriller… that is if the plot did a better job developing Levi (Teller) and Drasa (Taylor-Joy) as individuals. Their otherwise unique meet-cute (essentially a darker take on Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" video), quite frankly, felt a bit rushed and seeing them open up to each other so easily seemed to go against their initially closed-off personalities, especially on Levi’s part. It might have made more sense if their gunfire-heavy showdown against the "Hollow Men" (actually caused by their spontaneous decision to break protocol and communicate) was instead what led them to start talking.
By the time Levi decided to cross the Gorge and meet Drasa face-to-face (which follows a montage covering months of comical flirting), I still felt like I did not know these people on a deep enough level to believe they were in love. That could also be due to what I saw as Teller and Taylor-Joy’s lack of chemistry. Regardless, I feel I needed more time to get to know this couple before it could feel right to root for them.
More Time To Explore Its Conspiracy Angle
One of the most engaging moments from the movie for me is when J.D. – the agent Levi relieves from his guarding duties, played by Sope Disiru – theorizes that the titular valley is the portal to Hell. That had my mind racing over what could really be going on down. Seeing J.D. murdered in cold blood seconds after he was picked up had me convinced this must be a damn good secret Levi and Drasa are guarding.
Well, as far as I am concerned, the film’s conspiratorial intrigue never quite reaches its full potential, and not just because the reveal that the organization employing Levi and Drasa is trying to make super soldiers is a little too played out. The main issue for me is that the story does not spend enough time teasing us with its secrets (save a never-before-seen drone flying out from the bottom in a scene played for laughs) and keeping the suspense ratcheted high. By the time it answers its questions (or, more accurately, gets them out of the way), I did not feel I had much of a reason to be invested in the mystery.
More Time To Spend In The Gorge
The one thing about The Gorge that I felt was most unjustly rushed was the gorge itself. I was absolutely pumped to finally see what was going on down there and, even though the sequence was brought to life with some of the most half-baked CGI I have seen in a while, I was quite in awe of what I experienced. I just needed more.
We spend roughly half an hour of the film’s 127-minute runtime exploring this nightmarish hellscape, complete with some frightening creature-feature action almost on par with The Thing (sans the timeless practical effects, of course). I would have been happy with double that amount of time to see what other monsters and crimes against nature might exist in the gorge, which could have been achieved if the sequence had been written as a one-hour TV episode. Instead, the script did not want to bother leaving our heroes down there for too long, which only made me want to watch a great horror movie that I believe handles this sort of concept better: Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
Far too often lately have I seen TV shows that might have worked better as movies and movies that probably should have been TV shows. I believe this film is a prime example of the latter. Go ahead and stream The Gorge on Apple TV+ and see if you agree.
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