Apple TV+ dropped The Gorge on February 14, 2025, and it is a stranger film than its romance-thriller marketing suggests. Scott Derrickson directs from a Zach Dean script. Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy star as two elite snipers posted to opposite towers above a secret chasm. Their mission: guard it for a year, no contact, no explanation.
Trailer, via Apple TV.
Two Towers and a Year of Silence
Levi Kane, a former U.S. Marine Scout/Sniper, takes the west tower. Drasa, a Lithuanian operative who works for the Kremlin, takes the east. Neither knows what the gorge holds. Neither is allowed to ask. The tagline sells the secret. The film’s real subject is the loneliness of the posting.
Levi relieves J.D., a former British Royal Marine corporal, who lays out the rules. Cloaking antennas hide the site. The towers are armed to contain the creatures below, nicknamed “The Hollow Men.” J.D. also warns of “Straydog,” an unknown emergency protocol, and notes that battalions sent into the gorge in the late 1940s never came back.
Bartholomew’s Orders
Sigourney Weaver plays Bartholomew, the woman who recruits Levi. She is not a mentor. When J.D. believes he is being exfiltrated, he is killed on her orders after the helicopter picks him up. That single scene reframes the whole film. The gorge is not the only threat. The people running it are.
Drasa Breaks the Rule
Months pass with nothing. Then Drasa breaks the no-communication protocol on her birthday. She and Levi talk through written signs and a sharpshooting contest. When a wave of Hollow Men tries to climb out, they fight side by side from separate towers, using rifles, automated turrets and mines. The bond builds across the gap before either of them says a word aloud.
“The world’s most dangerous secret lies between them.”
Six months in, Levi ziplines across for dinner. They spend a romantic night together, and he tells her he is writing a poem for her. The next morning his cable snaps when Hollow Men detonate mines, and he parachutes into the gorge. Drasa arms herself and follows.
What the Middle Section Gets Right
The film’s best stretch is the quiet one. Derrickson lets the distance do the work, and Teller and Taylor-Joy carry it without sharing a room. The creature attacks are loud and frequent, but they matter less than the two people learning each other through binoculars.
Where The Gorge Slips
The back half gets crowded. The Hollow Men are a fine engine, but the film never decides whether they are the point or the backdrop. Weaver is underused, and the conspiracy around Bartholomew stays thin. The 128-minute runtime sags once both leads drop into the gorge, trading tension for spectacle.
The Verdict
The Gorge is a romance wearing a monster movie’s coat, and it works best when it remembers that. The premise is strong, the two leads are stronger, and the middle hour earns real feeling. The ending does not quite pay it off. Mixed reception from critics is fair, but the audience score tells the truer story.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
