Netflix’s new survival thriller Apex arrives Friday with Charlize Theron as Sasha, a climber who heads to Australia after a mountain accident and ends up being hunted through the woods by Taron Egerton’s Ben. The film from director Baltasar Kormákur runs just under 90 minutes and puts its stars in terrain that shifts from the side of a mountain to white water rapids.
Theron and Egerton spent much of the shoot running through the Australian wilderness, with Theron doing many of her own stunts and training to play a rock climber convincingly. The opening sequence sets the tone quickly: Sasha and Tommy are climbing when a rockslide and bad weather force her to let go of his rope, and the story follows her search for closure as Ben closes in with a crossbow.
That stripped-down setup is the point of Apex, which centers on grief, loss and survival in the Australian wilderness while leaning hard on physical realism. The movie was shot entirely on location, and that choice appears to have done as much for the performances as for the scenery.
A review from CNET summed up the result as strong performances by Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton making the Australian survival thriller tolerable. That is not a rave, but it is enough to suggest the film’s draw is less in twists than in watching two stars carry a chase built on sweat, terrain and endurance.
For viewers already following Egerton’s name in entertainment chatter, including recent headlines about Brooks Nader and a matchmaker called by Jeff Bezos' wife Lauren Sanchez, Apex offers a different kind of attention: a lean thriller built around a hunt in the woods. The real test on Friday is whether Netflix audiences want a quick, bruising survival story that keeps its focus on movement, danger and the aftermath of loss.
