Apex (2026) Netflix Movie Review

Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton can’t wipe the glossy Netflix sheen of Apex’s production values and story.

One blizzard and rockfall later, and Sasha watches Tommy plummet to his death, and the search for a major leading role for Bana goes on (Rewatch Spielberg’s Munich; he’s great in it). If you think this is a major spoiler, Apex is for you. From its opening scene to everything else that follows, the movie sees no reason to subvert expectations. It rushes things that little bit too much to be taken seriously.

Kormákur sounds like a good fit for Apex; he has form with the wide vistas of a mountaineering adventure, having directed Everest in 2015. However, Apex comes back down to Earth after its tragic prologue. Indeed, Apex is a leaner, meaner affair than Everest, a little over 90 minutes and centred on just two characters, one hunting down the other. A few months after the events of the prologue, Sasha travels to Tommy’s native Australia to hike and kayak herself out of her gloom. Theron is a capable and statuesque actress, but it’s hard to take her exertions seriously when they’re backgrounded by scenery that is plainly computer generated. To be fair, there are some shots of beautifully arid Australian desert early on, and dense rainforest in the rest of the film, but each majestic shot of real terrain is usually followed by a CG backdrop that shatters the illusion.

It was always going to be tricky to fit the natural beauty of the Australian landscape into the confines of a phone or tablet, but it hasn’t stopped Netflix from trying. Kormákur and Theron can throw their producing heft behind the film for a big budget, but cinematographer Lawrence Sher (Joker, The Bride!) shoots proceedings with the Netflix sheen of overlit surfaces that show off the artifice of the whole endeavour. Theron is game for some stunts, but Sasha looks less like a rugged outdoorswoman and more like an Academy Award-winning actress straight off a photo shoot.

The same extends to Taron Egerton as antagonist Ben. He first meets Sasha as she gets supplies at a gas station near the forest. Some local yokels creepily offer their services, but Ben comes across as more well-adjusted. It probably helps that Egerton is a buff young man with a winning grin, but both actors needed to get more dirt under their fingernails if this was ever going to be taken seriously.

It’d be easy to dismiss Apex as throwaway action guff; it’s on Netflix, it’s not taking up too much of your time, and it’s not going to cause anyone much offence. However, Jeremy Robbins’ script has hints of serious intent, enough to make you wonder what a rewrite for a full theatrical release might have warranted. Ben turns out to be a forest-dwelling nutter who goes A Most Dangerous Game on any passers-by, and Sasha is his latest prey. He sends her running to avoid his arrows and traps, and Kormákur gets a few decent thrills out of these sequences. In this context, though, Sasha’s bereavement storyline adds precisely nothing, save to beef up the runtime to 90+ minutes. There is potential in the perils of a solitary woman standing up to predatory men, but nothing gets explored. The emotions and the production polish only function at the surface level.

As stated, though, that’s probably enough for an undemanding Netflix watch. The narrative does look down some darker paths, as Ben’s predatory habits are revealed to be more exhaustive and more gruesome than expected. Yet even these moments flit by as Sasha gets running again with the predator on her tail. As both get more bloodied and exhausted, however, the viciousness of their injuries and attacks threaten to slide into slapstick. Faulting a film like Apex for an implausible story isn’t really fair; if this was aiming for realism, there’d be a lot more screaming, bloodshed and misery. Even the fakery of its production doesn’t send it falling off a cliff, but it’s not worth the climb either.

Apex will be available to stream globally on Netflix from April 24, 2026.