Apex

Rating:

I’m sick of predators.

Main Cast: Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton

Director: Baltasar Kormakur

Apex is a pretty standard action thriller. Grieving Sasha (Charlize Theron) heads to the Australian wilds to spend some time doing what she likes best: pushing herself to the limit in the outdoors. Unfortunately, her trip is ruined by men who want to rape her and murder her. Two different groups of men, mind you.

Apex is not a bad film. Theron and Egerton are great. She’s athletic, smart, and tough. He’s a simpering psychopath looking for a mommy to murder. The cinematography is top-notch and the scenery is beautiful. Even the action scenes are well-filmed.

However…

The longer I watched, the more I hated this movie. The heroine grew more heroic, the villains grew more detestable, I grew more grossed out. No one forced me to watch it, or to finish it. But I did, and I’m pissed.

Somehow, we have come to accept violence against women as entertainment. How many thrillers and action movies involve women fighting for their lives against violent men? Or a man protecting a woman from other, more violent, men? Or women protecting their children from violent men?

I realize that, as a species, we steadfastly refuse to learn anything from our past. Ever. But maybe we could acknowledge the present? Just this once? Violence against women is a massive global problem. The WHO estimates that one in three women is physically and/or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. More than 70 women are murdered, with a gun, by an intimate partner every single month in the United States. In 2022, a Harvard study showed that the number one cause of death during pregnancy in the United States is homicide.

Now, I’m perfectly happy to accept serious dramas about this problem. Movies have an important place in American culture. They start conversations about social issues all the time. Apex is not that kind of movie. It treats sexual and physical violence against its female main character at the hands of male characters as just another plot device, like so many films before it.

This trope is nothing but a reflection of the easy acceptance of violent men and violence against women in American culture. Apex was not made to start a conversation about this violence; it was made to profit from it. Charlize Theron’s character is heroic in her attempts to survive, insinuating that all of the women who came before her just weren’t tough enough.

Bullshit. I don’t place any blame on the actors in this film. They need to make a living and this garbage is currently all but unavoidable. It’s us. Why are we accepting rape and murder as entertainment? Is nobody watching the news? Who is green-lighting these scripts, thinking that we really need another movie about a pathetic POS with a weapon and a make believe grudge? Who is writing this shit?

I am not a prude. I do not detest all onscreen violence. Rather, I have quite a high tolerance for both honest storytelling about the sorry state of the world and cartoonish, over-the-top bloodshed. But for the LOVE OF GOD, have we learned nothing from current events and recent history about the sick pervasiveness of violence toward women and girls?

I am done with this shit. Viewers deserve better. Actors deserve better. WOMEN DESERVE BETTER. I’m going to be much more careful about what I select and what I recommend. The only thing that matters in this country is the almighty dollar and I’m not spending any more of mine on this garbage.

For anyone out there who thinks this is the only way to make money on a movie, I’d like to point to the $613,000,000 Project Hail Mary made in its first month. Our entertainment does not need to cater to the worst of us.

Sorry, Apex, you just happened to be the final straw for this movie watcher. Watch it if you want, but I won’t recommend it. The two stars are for Theron and Egerton.

Sue Millinocket

Sue reads a lot, writes a lot, edits a lot, and loves a good craft. She was deemed “too picky” to proofread her children’s school papers and wears this as a badge of honor. She is also proud of her aggressively average knitting skills. TV and indie movies are her jam.