Unique ideas are hard to come by, and while The Gorge begins strong with a great concept, it falls apart in the back half.
In the earliest scenes of The Gorge, we meet our two protagonists, Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy). Levi, a former Marine scout sniper, lives a life of solitude, wayward and clearly suffering from some form of PTSD. He receives a text telling him to report to a Marine base where he's interviewed by Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), a high-level somebody who can offer him a new sense of purpose. Meanwhile, Drasa, camped out in a hunter's blind, waits for the perfect shot. After she takes it and kills a Russian Oligarch, she visits her dying father. She has received a mysterious invitation and won't be there for his end, but he encourages her to go.
These two lost souls have each been recruited to man watchtowers on either side of a mysterious, fog-shrouded gorge. Levi's predecessor, J.D. (Sope Dirisu), briefs him on how to do his job and explains there's something in that gorge that the world can't afford to get out. The details are fuzzy, but the rules are clear: Levi can't leave, talk to the outside world (except one monthly, super brief radio check-in), or make contact with the tower on the other side of the gorge. Naturally, one of the first things Levi does is contact Drasa on the other side of the gorge.
The two communicate by holding up handwritten notes for the other to read using binoculars. Over time, they find comfort in each other's presence, establishing a real bond despite being on either side of a supposed hellmouth and unable to speak to one another.
Both actors display the charisma and presence required to pull off this wordless, budding romance. When they speak, mainly to themselves but for the audience's benefit, it doesn't feel weird or forced, and, despite the distance between them, there's an easy chemistry they share, the kind that only two wounded people can. It's a little cheesy, but it works despite awkward exposition dumps to set up the film.
Eventually, Levi crafts a zipline from a deactivated RPG and some rope and makes his way over to see Drasa, where they share dinner, a dance and a night of passion together. As he returns to his tower in the morning, he falls into the gorge, and Drasa immediately jumps in after him. This is the point where the movie comes apart.
The gorge, you see, is full of monsters. Horribly disfigured and animalistic "Hollow Men" that see their new visitors as food. It's difficult to say why without too many spoilers. While there are two genuinely scary monsters, most of them are disappointing. Another exposition dump promises a great diversity of monsters, but most of them look the same, a cross between men and trees, and most of the computer-generated creature design sticks out like a sore thumb.
A great opportunity for some practical creature and makeup effects presents itself, but the filmmakers fail to take advantage of it. Similarly, there's a moment when our star-crossed couple figures out that the monsters might have some intelligence, but after one fleeting moment, that idea is abandoned. Levi and Drasa spend much of the rest of their escape shooting at CG monsters that clearly aren't with Teller and Taylor-Joy in the green screen room, and none of it has any real weight or geography.
The Gorge contains a genuinely good idea, ripe for some creative effects and gore, but frustratingly, most of it is either not very well thought out, doesn't go far enough with the concept, or both. Worse yet, in a few cases, a scene will play out clearly meant to be an homage to another movie. While that's not a bad thing in and of itself, it's never a great idea to remind audiences of better movies (like The Lord of the Rings or The Bourne Identity) than the one they're watching.
It seems that director Scott Derrickson and writer Zach Dean couldn't quite decide what they wanted the latter half of the film to be. While Derrickson's a great horror director, aside from one nightmare mouth and a horde of spiders, the film doesn't commit to being horror. It has some bursts of action, but they come behind long stretches of exposition, with not much happening. Even the idea that both characters are expert snipers doesn't really come into play in any meaningful way as they run-and-gun their way out of the gorge.
The Gorge leaves us with a movie based on a fun idea that starts strong, loses its commitment in the middle and ends with an uninteresting, unmemorable whimper.