Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-02-14 (Friday)

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025 08:11:48 -0800, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
wrote:

I tried to get through two movies yesterday, but was too tired to get
through the second one and had to abandon it to finish it off today.
>
Anyway, I watched:

The Gorge (Apple TV+) - In glorious 4k, so you can see the monsters up
close!!
   SPOILERS,
   at least some,
   come next!
   On that score, this is not what I was expecting - this is seemingly
being sold as "romance" between two sniper-assassin types (Miles Teller
Anya Taylor-Joy) who fall in love as "opposites" on a mission. But it's
actually as much, if not more... sci-fi? horror?

Hmm, maybe I missed the ads but I was expecting the sci-fi/horror
aspect. Didn't expect the romance aspect though once I saw who the two
'guardians' were it seemed obvious something was going to happen
there.

   Anyway, Teller (who is looking kind of old here!...) and Taylor-Joy
play two burned out sniper-assassins, he an American and she a Russian -
He has nothing to live for, and she has a former KGB father (William
Houston) who is dying from cancer... Teller's character is approached by
an apparent high-level spook (Sigourney Weaver) to take on a
high-importance mission that he is told nothing about. He wakes up on a
plane to... somewhere, and told to parachute out. He ends up near a
watchtower on a gorge somewhere, manned by Americans or Brits, where he
is to relieve a British soldier (Sope Dirisu) who has had
guard(/maintenance) duty on that same watchtower for a year. Teller's
character relieves the dude, who is helicoptered out (or is he?...).

Well he does get a ride on a helicopter so there's that.

   Anyway, eventually, Taylor-Joy's character, who is in a Russian
watchtower on the other on the other side of the gorge, starts flirting
with/trying to seduce Teller (duh! of course she does! she's Anya
Taylor-Joy).
   This part follows what we were expecting from the movie.
   But why they're there, and what's in the gorge, is where this movie
takes a hard turn. In fact, you expect that, eventually, the two of them
are going to get stuck in that gorge somehow, and you're not going to be
wrong. What's in the gorge is not what you're expecting, though the
explanation for all of the madness pretty much is what you'd expect.
(Hey, it's Ruta Gedmintas on the old film reel! I didn't know she was
still around!)
   This is the kind of movie where if Netflix had done it, it would be
total crap. But because it's done by Apple (TV+), this one is actually
kind of good.
   And I'll watch Taylor-Joy read a phonebook, so... Thumbs up!

I definitely enjoyed it.

I then intended to watch "Longlegs", which has finally shown up on one
of my streamers (Hulu), but started getting too sleepy, and had to stop
about halfway through - I will finish that one today.
>
>
What did you watch?
>

Just THE GORGE.