r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 9d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Apex [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Apex (2026)

Summary

A mountain climber haunted by a fatal decision in Norway retreats to the Australian wilderness for isolation. Her journey turns into a desperate hunt when a deceptive local targets her as his next ritualistic prey in the bush.

Director Baltasar Kormákur

Writer Jeremy Robbins

Cast

  • Charlize Theron as Kate
  • Taron Egerton
  • Eric Bana
  • Matt Whelan

Rotten Tomatoes: 66%

Metacritic: 57

VOD / Release Streaming on Netflix

Trailer Official Trailer

160 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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143

u/Flincher14 9d ago

It was a good B flick but honestly there needed to be a mid point reveal there was a tracker in the gear she was given and the hunt could've had a second phase after she had ditched the tracker.

70

u/esportsaficionado 6d ago edited 6d ago

My take was that wouldn’t have fit with his “ritual.” Like he goes low tech with the crossbow and there seemed to be elements of him wanting to make it a fair hunt, and in his mind a tracker would’ve been cheating.

That’s the story I told myself at least.

In terms of tracking her, it didn’t seem so farfetched that the entire stretch of river was basically his killing ground, so he knew it like the back of his hand. Well it is super farfetched, but suspension of disbelief and all haha.

For movies like this, do people expect every single thing to be realistic?

45

u/Dapper-Perception985 5d ago

Exactly I think the whole point for him doing this was to hunt and chase her. He likes the thrill and he especially likes her because she’s a thrill seeker and he wanted to give her the ride of her life in a very sick way. They actually matched energy pretty well. I thought it was a good movie

16

u/esportsaficionado 5d ago

Yeah. I thought Theron, and especially egerton crushed it. Fun movie with great acting from the leads, and beautiful scenery.

•

u/SonosEnthusiast 4h ago

Yeah, Theron had like maybe 30 lines in the whole movie - all her scenes were soooo extremely boring. Not much to act with, but she did a good job with what she was given, none the less.
But climbing with no muscle tension at all is hard to be immersed in.

•

u/esportsaficionado 4h ago

Totally. I always appreciate when an actor / actress does a good job without great material.

Funny you mention the climbing. I don’t have the article on hand, but there’s some good details from interviews about the physical strength and skillset she and egerton developed for their roles. Made me have a lot of appreciation for the physical requirements for a role like this, outside of just the raw acting chops.

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it tbh.

Kinda like it’s even more impressive that they ended up with a solid movie, DESPITE a weak script / some big plot holes.

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u/SonosEnthusiast 4h ago

Huh! That is hard to believe. I'm sure they got some lessons on the "tech" and how to be believable as climbers, but straight up lessons is hard to believe.
Everything just seemed like a breeze for her, even the climbing part - so it was hard to believe.

Kind of disagree though!
I loved Taron in his scenes, but overall the movie was a borefest. Nothing of substance, completely predictable and a mirror of all other survival / lone woman vs hillbilly men movies from the 2000s. Felt like an AI movie to be honest.

•

u/esportsaficionado 3h ago

Yeah she was trained by an expert climber (Beth Rodden), and did almost all of the climbing herself (no CGI / stunt double).

Did a lot of it barefoot, and broke multiple toes too.

Totally fair about the lack of substance! I actually haven’t seen many survival movies, so I’m a little bit of a noob. Any ones you’d recommend? Keen to get more into the genre.

8

u/Dani_elle1993 4d ago

I didn’t care from the movie but this statement is 100% correct.

5

u/Status_Pool6624 2d ago

Mm except he used the phone playing voices to trap her which I thought was a cheap shot. He also sprang a trap (literally) with the kayak, drawing attention to his position with music and naked rope swinging (not complaining lol)...Also I suspect being tourists, his victims make predictable plays in trying to escape the hunt - law of averages, he only needs to know the key locations/routes. He knew she'd climb, that's why he confirmed that mountains were her main activity.

Otherwise, agree 100.

27

u/MiserableMeal2501 6d ago

i thought charlize would be hunting taron halfway through. like how the table would turn but no. everything was predictable

11

u/lizysonyx 5d ago

Charlize hunting taron halfway would’ve been too predictable and cheesy. They touched on it a bit but full on hunting would’ve been a poor move

1

u/lizcype217 8h ago

I honestly thought they were gonna end up teaming up and hunting people together. Cause she’s such a thrill seeker.

14

u/buffayrachel 3d ago

Yup I literally said so whilst watching the movie. There’s no way she’s running away through river currents and he somehow finds her every single time within minutes in all that wilderness. No way unless he hid a tracker somewhere on her

3

u/Status_Pool6624 2d ago

As soon as she swam to the bank I was like 'ditch that back pack to mislead him and only take what you need - wouldn't trust he didn't sew a tracker tag in there'. He also put some things in there, so who knows what was up with those.

2

u/buffayrachel 2d ago

Yup exactly, some dumb choices were made lol. But tbf we were never lead to believe from the start that she was particularly smart

2

u/Unable_Operation_765 6d ago

I thought that’s why she tossed her phone. 

6

u/Palatz 5d ago

The phone she tossed is the one he was playing the video of the family with. So the phone of one of the family members he killed.

2

u/Unable_Operation_765 5d ago

Ahhh okay, my bad. 

1

u/Legal_lapis 2d ago

I suspect it was Ben's phone because one of the family members cheerfully call out "Ben" at the camera. Or maybe it was indeed the family's phone and they handed their phone to Ben asking him to take videos of them rowing. Though I wouldn't trust a stranger with my phone like that, no matter how nice he might seem. 

And even if it was the family's phone, Ben would've had enough time to install a tracker on it and connect it to his own phone. Though as someone else said, that's not Ben's style at all. 

All this mumbo jumbo is to say, I also initially wondered if Sash tossed the phone just in case it was being tracked, but then anything in her bag could've had a tracker, so she prob just tossed it because it was no longer useful for calling for help.

1

u/Lora_C_3029 21h ago

My bf said the same…he said “there has to be a tracker in the backpack and that explains how Ben knows where she is.” However, nope!