Netflix’s New Thriller ‘Apex’ Puts Charlize Theron Through Hell — and It’s Absolutely Worth Watching

Charlize Theron battles both nature and man — particularly one specific, psychotic man — in the new Netflix thriller Apex, a modern update on Deliverance that may convince you to trade in your next vacation into the wild for a few days at a heavily populated spa in the suburbs. Both set and filmed in rugged Australia, the movie is definitely a looker, with the camera swooping around Theron’s frazzled adventurer as she runs, climbs, swims, and paddles her way from danger.

Who knows how much of this was filmed practically? In 2026, it’s near impossible to separate dazzling real-life locales from an intricately programmed digital reality. But sometimes it’s best not to fret over how the filmmakers got the results on screen and instead appreciate what your eyes are telling you. And here are my key takeaways after watching the spectacle that is Apex: (1.) Despite featuring some reheated, survival-thriller tropes, a good portion of this is fairly exciting stuff. And (2.) I completely buy Theron doing all of it because she continues to be the action heroine against which all others are judged. (Sorry, ScarJo.) In Charlize we trust, and, with Apex, she delivers.

What Is ‘Apex’ About?

In Apex, Theron plays Sasha, a thrill-seeker who gets her rocks off by taking on some of the planet’s biggest challenges and daring nature to do its worst. The film opens with Sasha and her boyfriend, Tommy (a welcome Eric Bana), climbing up Norway’s the Troll Wall, an impossibly high and steep mountainside that looks way too intense to actually exist … except, it turns out it does. As the camera swoops down the rock face and to the tent that Sasha and Tommy have anchored to the side of the mountain, you’ll likely let out your first “Oh hell no!” from the comfort of your living-room couch.

Action protagonists typically come bundled with some great inner sadness, so it’s not a surprise when things go wrong and Tommy finds himself plummeting untethered down the mountain and out of sight. Cut to five months later, and Sasha arrives in Australia for a solo wilderness trek, one seemingly designed to honor her fallen lover, whose treasured compass is never far from her reach. Things start off a bit dicey when she’s harassed by some local hillbillies, but she starts feeling better about things once another local, Ben (Taron Egerton), steps in to deflect the troublemakers and offer some friendly advice.

Something about Ben seems a little off, though, as his “nice guy” vibes come across as just a little unsettling. (Making a joke about roofies does not help.) Sasha is too wise in the ways of the world to trust anyone with a Y chromosome, so she’s quickly off into the wild on her own. Unfortunately for her, it’s not long before she and Ben are reunited — but this time, he’s got a crossbow pointed at her face and is ready to start his own version of The Most Dangerous Game. Because, see, Ben’s an adventurer, too … or, more specifically, a hunter. And Sasha just became his latest prey.

‘Apex’s Intense Visuals Pull You Right Into the Story

With that, the chase is on, as Sasha desperately tries to navigate the harsh Australian wilderness while being stalked by a serial killer. Again, the visuals are the main story here. While Theron traverses woods, rapids, and rocky crevices, the camera zips around her like director Baltasar Kormákur ordered a crate full of GoPro’s highest-res cameras and strapped them all to a fleet of nimble drones. And that might be exactly what he did! Or maybe this movie was mostly assembled on a computer. It’s tough to say, although it seems clear that at least some of the stunning images on display are courtesy of Theron and Egerton being actually dropped into the wilds of Australia. The early white-water rafting scenes, in particular, border on breathtaking, and there’s a fantastic shot later in the film when Sasha tumbles down a hill, over a small cliff, and into the rapids that’s all designed to look like one take. The way in which Apex inserts the viewer into the action, no matter how it was accomplished, feels immediate and thrilling.

With the visuals clearly doing their job, the rest of the film’s success hinges on its main characters, as Apex quickly turns into a proper two-hander. The script, from Jeremy Robbins, doesn’t always give them the best material to work with from an inner-character standpoint. Again, Sasha’s backstory feels pretty cookie-cutter, and her personality overall could largely be defined as: wants men to leave her alone. (Honestly, we can’t fault the character for that.) Thankfully, the producers got Theron to play Sasha, and, as we’ve established, the actress is at her best when playing a woman who’s not about to take any shit from anybody.

Ben, meanwhile, is a garden-variety nut job who’s definitely unhinged but not always as compelling as the movie wants him to be. In fact, he’s a little goofy, as he scurries around making weird animal noises. (It also looks like he lives in the same hut that Yoda does.) Egerton eagerly dives in but can’t really elevate the part past your average action-thriller psychopath. I kept having the feeling that he was playing one of James McAvoy‘s Split personalities … maybe one who got cut out of that movie.

All Hail Charlize Theron, Long May She Reign

Image via Netflix

The deeper into the hunt Apex gets, the more it starts flirting with becoming a straight-up horror movie. Ben is not a novice when it comes to his work, and events continually turn more grisly as the movie races toward its finish line. (Some light camping on the side of the Troll Wall won’t be the only thing that has you muttering, “Nope, nope, nope.”) At a tight 96 minutes, Apex knows better than to overstay its welcome, and the movie smartly gets to the end credits before you start questioning what the likelihood was that Sasha would have survived any of this.

Then again, she is played by Charlize Theron. And Theron, as is her way, sells the hell out of it. Though Apex‘s story largely just updates survivor-thriller tropes we’ve seen many times before, it’s effective enough in its repackaging that it’s certainly worth firing up on Netflix during a lazy night in. The physicality of Theron’s performance, along with the film’s vertigo-inducing cinematography, ultimately make Apex an adventure vacation from hell worth taking.

Release Date

April 24, 2026

Director

Baltasar Kormákur

Writers

Jeremy Robbins

Pros & Cons

• The dizzying cinematography really adds to Apex’s adventure-thriller appeal.
• Charlize Theron remains our most formidable female action star.

• Apex’s story can be a bit tropey and its characters a bit one-note.