Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy play people who are trained to observe rather than connect. The distance between them becomes the film's first obstacle.
Once the mystery beneath the gorge appears, the movie changes genres without completely abandoning the relationship at its center.
The distance is the romance .
The most charming part of the film is watching two isolated people find ways to communicate when physical contact is almost impossible.
The film's best monster is the distance between two people.
That relationship gives the spectacle an emotional reason to exist. Without it, the creatures would simply be creatures.
The second half gets loud .
Derrickson clearly enjoys the horror material, but the film becomes less interesting when it starts explaining the thing in the gorge.
The visual ideas remain strong. The emotional simplicity is what gets buried.
A strange little hybrid .
The Gorge is uneven, but the combination of romance, action and creature horror is refreshing.
It feels like a movie made by people who wanted to make a monster film and a love story at the same time. That sincerity is hard not to like.
The romance is an unusual but welcome ingredient because it gives the spectacle a reason to slow down. The gorge is mysterious, but the people watching each other across it are more interesting than the explanation waiting at the bottom. The film works best when the distance between the two characters becomes part of the tension.
