Is it just me, or does it seem like good sci-fi movies are so hard to find nowadays? Many have tried over the last decade to release movies that have the quality of being a modern sci-fi classic — with examples like the “Divergent” trilogy and the Netflix original movie “Uglies.” So far, no one has succeeded.
Yesterday, I watched “The Gorge,” written by Zach Dean and directed by Scott Derrickson — and it left me slightly puzzled on how to feel about it.
“The Gorge” tells the story of two snipers, Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), who are both working to safeguard a gorge that hides a mysterious world of dangerous creatures below. Levi and Drasa work in towers on separate sides of the gorge, and they fall in love despite being ordered not to communicate with one another.
Aesthetically speaking, the film was done very well. The gorge itself shows viewers a selection of colors that create a spooky, mystifying feel —with the fog that filled the screen, which was sometimes a gross yellow and later a bluish purple. At other times, the use of intense reds and oranges gave the movie a video-game vibe. The soundtrack was the cherry on top, specifically, the sounds during the scenes shot inside of the gorge were perfect to produce a creepy, eerie tone.
The actual plot of the film is where it gets strange because the love story aspect of the movie conflicts with the sci-fi aspect. Although I think the romance between Levi and Drasa was compelling, the romance felt out of place in this movie.
Act 1 of the movie focuses on exposition about the gorge — which was lacking, because I still had questions left unanswered. This act also starts to build Levi and Drasa’s love story, one that made sense, because they are lonely individuals made lonelier by their isolation from being in separate towers. By Act 2, the love story aspect of the film fades out as they enter the gorge. Levi, Drasa and the audience all forget about the growing romance, having to think about what is actually happening around them. By this point, the movie had introduced a new major conflict: finding the why of the gorge.
By Act III the romance had made a resurgence, but it wasn’t as strong as before.
The movie was much simpler in Act 1 when it was just about Levi and Drasa falling in love and their conflict of struggling to interact from opposite sides of the gorge, and it became far more convoluted when everything became about trying to escape. From a story perspective, it would have been better if the film had just focused on the sci-fi and mystery aspects of the gorge. Although there are good examples of sci-fi romance films, like “Passengers” (2016), I think that this movie wasn’t able to blend the two genres.
I am beginning to recognize that American media has a growing interest in producing movies like “The Hunger Games” (2012) or “Maze Runner” (2014) — but that just aren’t as great. There are plenty of things wrong with this movie: not enough information about the gorge foreshadowed, the springing of new conflict onto the viewers halfway into the movie, the lack of background information about the characters’ pasts — I could keep going, but I won’t.
Some filmmakers are so entranced by the idea of success and popularity that they forget why films are supposed to be made in the first place. They are made to entertain, to inform, to tell stories and to expose people to new ideas. It wouldn’t be completely honest for me to say that this film wasn’t entertaining, but in order to make a good movie, you have to do all of these things while also checking the boxes of strategic storytelling.
Many modern-day characters seem to be one-dimensional or stereotypical. In order to make a character unique, you must give them wants, needs and values. Also, it should be clear what characters are conflicting with internally to understand how the character is growing. Though there seemed to be a lot of conflict within this movie, I didn’t fully see how it changed the characters. That is because I never understood them in the first place.
It is disappointing to see movies that have the potential to be great, not be. Many of the movies I’ve watched recently left me disappointed, wondering why movies aren’t what they used to be. No matter how bad cinema gets, though, I refuse to lower my standards. While I thought this was an entertaining watch, it certainly won’t be one that will be memorable for me.
