Episode 144 - Netflix's Apex Movie - A Wild Aussie Serial Killer Thriller!

Welcome back to DMR! 

In this episode, we dive into Apex (2026) — Netflix’s intense Australian survival thriller starring Charlize Theron as a grieving woman forced into a deadly fight for survival deep in the wilderness. Joining her is Taron Egerton, delivering a standout performance as Ben, a mysterious and resourceful stranger whose presence becomes central to the film’s escalating tension. Their dynamic drives the emotional core of the story, blending vulnerability, suspicion, and raw endurance as the two navigate both the brutal terrain and a relentless human predator.

Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Apex is crafted with a visceral, moment‑to‑moment realism that critics praise for its immersive pacing and breathtaking use of the Australian landscape. We break down Theron’s powerhouse physical performance, Egerton’s layered portrayal of Ben, Jeremy Robbins’ tight survival‑drama script, and the film’s impressive production team — including producers Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, David Ready, Ian Bryce, Charlize Theron, Beth Kono, A.J. Dix, and Kormákur himself.

Be sure to grab your 30 Day Free Audible Trial link in the show!

Transcript

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Welcome to DMR, Dewey's Movie Reviews, The Red Carpet Treatment.

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Enjoy the show.

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Alright, alright, alright. So welcome back to DMR. Thank you for tuning back in as always. Much obliged. So we've been very busy lately. The weekend just gone. We've just interviewed Tamara Davis, Hollywood director, editor, producer. She was involved with a lot of music videos in the 80s and 90s with NWA, Sonic Youth, and Handsome. She also directed a film called Gun Crazy with Drew Barrymore that got her a Golden Globe nomination. Drew that is. Then she's responsible for directing some very big cult classics like CB4 with Chris Rock. You've also got Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, one of the biggest comedy films that come out of the 90s. Plus, you also had Half Baith with Dave Chappelle. She did Crossroads with Britney Spears. She's done a whole hoop of documentaries as well. So very cool interview. It's going to be coming out a couple of weeks' time. It's on the editing floor at the moment. So watch out for that one. So today I'm going to be reviewing a Netflix film that came out a couple of months ago in August. No, not August. We're not even in August now, are we? In April this year. And it's called Apex. Apex with Charlice Taron. And you've got Taryn Egerton. I think it's how you say his last name. Eric Banner is in it briefly. And it is directed by Baltazar Cormakaru. I think it's how you say his last name. So I'm on Rotten Tomatoes. I'll go through the schools and the synopsis for it shortly. And we'll go over it. It's a cracker of a film. Absolutely loved it. Very, very cool. To the point where it's like, oh, I'd watch it again. 100%. It's very, very cool. So let's run through it. So a reminder that DMR is part of the Amazon Influencers program that's in conjunction with Audible. So what does that mean for you, the listener at home? Well, there's a link in my show. You can jump on that link, it will take you over to Audible, and you can start a 30-day free trial on behalf of DMR. That's right, 30 days for free. And one of the books I'm listening to at the moment is called Life by Keith Richards. Obviously, a member of the Rolling Stones. Very cool stuff. It's narrated by him part of the time with another gentleman that is doing the majority of the talking. However, it's a cracker of a book thus far. I haven't finished it as of yet. It goes for a very, very long time. So a lot of bang for your buck there. You'll be supporting DMR as well. And it's a very good opportunity. So let's roll into it in terms of going through Apex. You go on it alone. I wouldn't recommend it. Do you want the easy way or the hard way? The best way. Yeah, they think I can handle it. Alright, so Apex, I'm on Rotten Tomatoes. I was actually surprised at the scores. I hadn't looked at them until after I watched the movie. I knew a little bit about the movie, but on Rotten Tomatoes, we've got here from the critics, which was at 68%, and the audience score at 46. So 68 is a tomato, red tomato. And then you got the audience score, which is a tipped over box of popcorn at 46%. I don't agree with the audience at all. I feel that the critics should have scored this a lot higher than 68. This is probably in for me anyway, for a Netflix film, this is definitely up in the 80s for sure. 100%. So Apex, it's R-rated. It's a 2026 film. It's a hundred. No, back up. It's one hour and 35 minutes long. So about an hour and a half, 90 minutes, whatever you want. It's an action, mystery, and a thriller film. So what is it about? Let's have a look here. Synopsis. Yada yada yada. Let's go down the bottom here. Here we go. So a grieving woman testing her limits in the Australian wilderness is suddenly ensnared in a deadly game with a ruthless predator. The ruthless predator is not an animal, it is a basically a serial killer, a psychopath, played by what's his name here? Taryn Egerton. Egerton? Egerton. I'm not sure how to say his last name there. But Taron has been in a fair few things. So obviously we've got Charlie Seron, we know who she is. She plays a woman called Sasha. Eric Banner is in the film as well. Very, very briefly. It would have been cool actually if he was in this film longer, but I get where they went with the story with it. So they're at the start of the film, we've got Eric Banner and Charlie Seron. They're a couple, and they're on some place over in Europe, I think it is, called the Trolls Edge, or something like that, some deadly looking mountain. And they're climbing up it, mountain climbing, rock climbing, what do you want to call it. And a very tragic accident happens when they are hit with a very large storm, and there is a tragedy at the start of the film. I won't get into too many spoilers, but you kind of know where I'm getting at with things with Eric Banner not being in it for too long. It's very violent as well. What happens at the start of the film, very violent, and it kind of sets the scene about where this is gonna go. So she's grieving Sasha, that is, so she then goes over to here in Australia. And if you're not familiar with Australian wilderness, whilst I live in Sydney, most of the country is not inhabited, and we've got very rugged bushlands with stacks of standstone and whole heaps of forest or bush, if you want to call huge eucalyptus bush areas that have many deadly animals that are in it, not all of them, but a lot of them can kill you, especially the reptiles with the snakes and whatnot. You've got red-bellied black snakes, you've got brown snakes, all different types of venomous snakes that are out there, especially during our summertime, and the heat as well in summertime can get up to well, last summer there was here in Sydney, it got up to 46 degrees, so it is very hot, very, very hot. So she is here in Australia, and she is basically going to go down some like wild rapid stuff with her kayak. So, how they shot this film is pretty cool. The cinematography in it is very cool to look at, very dense, very rich in colour, and they've captured the Australian wilderness quite well. So I've just thrown it into Co-Pilot about where Apex was filmed, and actually they just came back from this region. So there's a few different areas where the film is shot. We've got the Blue Mountains National Park. If you haven't seen the Blue Mountains, it's an amazing place. The Blue Mountains are actually called the Blue Mountains because all the eucalyptus forests or bush trees that are there, they give off their oils or their oils are being evaporated, creating a blue haze over them. It's pretty cool. Pretty, pretty cool stuff. You've also got the Grand Canyon walking track in the Blue Mountains. You've got Glenbrook Gorge in Lapstone in New South Wales, you've got Jindera Falls in Wallaroo in near Canberra. You've also got the Boning General Store and Post Office, New South Wales, and then you've also got some of it was shot in Disney Studios in Sydney. So it looks very cool. Anyway, getting a bit sidetracked, we'll get rid of the co-pilot. One second, please. Hold. So she goes at the start of these bushlands, she's in a national parks and wildlife area, and she basically sees a hell of a lot of different missing people up on one of the notice boards. So you can tell right there from the start that something is not right. So let's go have the trailer and discuss a little bit more. You made it! It's me from a gas station. Hey, you having fun? Something got into my gear last night and took everything. I'm sorry. It's a drastic bummer. You hungry? Just kind of looking for that gear. So she meets a funky group of, I guess you'd call them hunters. Or they're just Aussie dickheads basically in this national parks and wildlife information area. Then she also meets Ben, played by Taryn Edgerton. At the start, he seems quite nice, quite friendly, a little bit kooky, might have been out in the woodlands or the bush too long. And he gives her some pointers about where she can go kayaking or in the bush. And basically, he directs her right into an area that he's extremely familiar with. And she goes out in the bush, she's by herself, and then one night she starts to camp out, wakes up, and some of her gear is gone. Then she actually stumbles across Ben again, and things are very odd. He's acting quite strange towards her. She tells him that she's missing some gear. And he basically says, Do you want to eat some food? Do you want to stay stick around? Look, I'll just you know, I'd love to just get back to my kayaking. And he goes, Well, actually, you got your gear, goes inside his tent, see that in the trailer, and throw this bag out. And he also comes out with this massive crossbow and basically tells her that he is wants to play a game, you've got until the end of this song to run away, and we're gonna be going a little hunting trip, and you are the prey, basically, and that's the premise of the movie. So it's very well shot. This film, the way he shoots his crossbow is startling at times, and throughout the film, she stumbles across a massive cave where he's been hiding a lot of the people that have been missing. And I won't go into too many spoilers again if you haven't seen the film, but it's really hectic when you get to this situation. So this film is a huge cat and mouse game, and it gets to the point of climax where they both become injured in the bush, and again, it's just two of them, and then they have to work together in order to get out of a certain situation. So that's a premise of Apex, and again, it's like I'm looking at these scores on Rotten Tomatoes, I'm thinking, why are they so low? They're very, very low, and they should be a lot higher. I don't understand. Now, Netflix have been hit and miss over the years in terms of how good their films are, they've obviously got some very good shows on there, it's the biggest streaming platform in the world, and some of the films are quite solid, some are average, but this was quite good in terms of what I thought the film took us on the journey that we really didn't expect. So, very cool stuff, very, very cool stuff. Again, it goes for about 90 odd minutes, so it's quite bite-sized in terms of how long the film goes for, and it really keeps you engaged in terms of this storyline. So, let's go over the verdict and we'll discuss it a little bit more from there. So, look, it's very simple. You've got until the very end of this song to get as far away from me as you can. You got the right shoes on? It'll be fun. Everybody gotta dug it in. Everybody come along with the run, run, run, rum. Deadly jump gonna hit you in the small execution. No time no rest. Alright, so as I said, I really enjoyed this film. Apex, Charlie Ceron plays a very good role as Sasha, a grieving wife or girlfriend from what happened with Eric Banner. If Eric was in this film a little bit more, probably would have been better. Surprised he had such a short role in this film for the name that he is. So, anyway, parking that aside, so she plays a very good role as Sasha. You've obviously got Taryn Egerton playing Ben. He plays an awesome psychopathic killer in this film, and what this film actually did, it gave me vibes of the backpack of murders here in Australia. Now I'm old enough, I'm 41. So when the backpack of murders with Ivan the Lap were taking place in the early to mid-90s, it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I remember waking up and was probably like 93, 94 off the top of my head. I'd wake up and my dad would bring home the newspaper, and there would be another murder victim on the front of the paper, and no one knew who this guy was and how he was doing it. And we lived in an area in the Bankstown region or close to that Liverpool region where Ivan Millette was picking up his victims on the Hume Highway, taking them into the Belango State Forest, and murdering them. So when I was watching this film, Apex, it gave me those vibes when I was a kid because this is what was happening. Basically, you had people that weren't missing, and you had a psychopathic killer that was taking real-life victims out into the bush and having his way with them and murdering them. It was a wild, wild case. So Malat is dead now, but this is what the film reminded me of. So again, cinematography, great, runtime on it, very solid. The acting, very believable, all the action scenes as well, with the kayaks and down the rivers and stuff like that. Very cool, very believable. Some shocking parts in the film as well. The main killer or the character played by Taryn Egerton, which is Ben, he makes these unnerving bird noises like and he does it a few times throughout the film when he's hunting Shalise there on. So again, I will watch this film again. I really enjoyed it. So make sure you check out Apex on Netflix. I don't think it was at the actual cinemas. Let's have a look here. Nope, it's distributor straight to Netflix. So came out on the 24th of April, and yes, very solid film. Could be in the top 10 this year, could be in the top 10. So watch that one. So stay tuned to DMR. As I said, we're going to be editing that Tamara Davis interview. And the great news is that we're getting approached by a lot of PR firms directly through DMR on our different channels for their clients. And clients are actually, when I say clients, talent is actually approaching us as well directly. So it's very cool. Obviously, I'm very busy on the back end doing my canvassing to Hollywood PR firms directly, and we're getting some great responses as well. And Tamara came on with a direct result on my canvassing, so it's good, it's very good, people. Very, very good. This is what DMR is built for. So let's see where this goes in the next few months or the back end of 2026. I got a feeling by this time next year, the brand is going to be going leaps and bounds. Not to be biased, but I've just got that feeling. DMR has been in production since 2021. The podcast started in 2022. So exciting times. So, as per usual, ladies on the menjay. What's the matter? Just do your best. Do you like the hanger? Everything getting out of the mind. Everybody jumping out of the man. Everybody jumping out of this game. Let's do it. You've just experienced the MR the red carpet.