Apex Review: Theron Thrills, Script Falls Short
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- Apex stars Charlize Theron as Sasha, a mountain climber whose husband Tommy (Eric Bana) dies in a Norwegian climbing accident before she's stalked across the Australian outback by a psychopathic hunter
- Taron Egerton plays Ben, a crossbow-wielding killer who lures Sasha into the wilderness in a subgenre exercise the reviewer compares to Deliverance and Silence of the Lambs, culminating in a cave reveal of past victims' corpses and bones
- Director Baltasar Kormákur (Trapped, Adrift, The Deep, Everest, Beast) commits to "old-fashioned, CGI-free moviemaking" with Lawrence Sher's "stunning and gorgeous" cinematography powering the 95-minute runtime
- The script by Jeremy Robbins draws the reviewer's sharpest criticism: "too talented a director to waste his time on a script that just dials up the cliches of this stalking subgenre"
- Theron is hailed as "the premier female action star working in movies," with the review praising her climbing, canoeing, and survival work as "Charlize at full tilt"
- Apex streams on Netflix beginning April 24, 2026, rated R, produced by Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, David Ready, Ian Bryce, Theron, A.J. Dix, Beth Kono, and Kormákur
Why it matters: For Netflix, a Theron-led action film that leans on practical stunts and Australian locations over VFX is a bet that star power and visceral craft can carry a clichéd script. Kormákur's survival-thriller resume (Everest, Adrift, Beast) positions him to elevate the genre mechanics, but the reviewer's verdict that the material wastes his talent signals a film likely to satisfy Theron fans without breaking out of the stalking-thriller formula.
