Apex (2021)

I saw this movie as a troubling status of our present day situation, where everything is about hate, blood and gore. While I understand that this is a hypothetical story, I have no doubt that the direction this world is heading this could be in our future. The acting was a little weak, but with strong cast members like Bruce Willis and Neil McDonough I put that shortcoming on lines and direction. Even the action scenes left a little to be desired. Still I give this 3 stars.⭐⭐⭐

Bruce Willis is "Stone". He used to be a cop before a miscarriage of justice saw him serving a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit. As luck would have it, though, "Rainsford" (Neal McDonough) and his sidekick "West" (Alexia Feast) are organising a lethal man-hunt on their remote island. They decide that "Stone" would make for an ideal target so offer him his freedom if he survives - and that's a big if. What now ensues is a truly awful hash of a film that sees him wandering about the forest in an hig-vis cardigan generating about as much menace as a day in an ice cream factory. The story has elements of the far superior "The Most Dangerous Game" (1942) but is just remarkably devoid of character. The dialogue is really puerile and, to be perfectly honest, I felt that they could all have been doing with being left on the island to slaughter each other without troubling the audience at all. What is Willis doing here? He cannot need the money? His laid back, slightly sarcastic style falls completely flay and McDonough - well perhaps someone could explain to me how this ultimate in one-dimensional actors still gets work? I think "Nadir" would have been a far better title for this - it really is for all concerned.

Apex is an ironic title for something that feels more like a nadir. This is not only the latest but also the dumbest version of the Most Dangerous Game plot, wherein the would-be hunters spend more time hunting each other while their supposed prey sits idly by watching them kill each other. As for the prey himself, the film offers two contradictory narratives, with the character inhabiting a limbo somewhere in between.

On the one hand, Thomas Ernest Malone (Willis), aka The Mutilator, has been convicted of assault, fraud, wire fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, computer crime, robbery, arson, kidnapping, possession of illegal firearms, manslaughter and “criminal activity”. Criminal activity? What’s all the other stuff, then? Hobbies? (comically, both IMDb and All Movie speak of "a crime he didn't commit").

Furthermore, Malone — who “became addicted to gambling and lost custody of his children,” which makes it sound like he bet his offspring on a losing hand — has “active warrants in 47 states” (even though he’s already in prison), and his sentence is "life imprisonment without parole/117 years." Huh?

On the other hand, we’re shown a long list of serious injuries and medical problems including "two synthetic liver transplants" (the movie is set 20 Minutes into the Future) and "more than 60 concussions." Finally, his date of birth “cannot be authenticated”; i.e., the character must be as old as Willis himself.

This kind of cognitive dissonance reminds me of Demolition Man. In that film, Wesley Snipes can't hide his excitement at the prospect of having Jeffrey Dahmer among his henchmen, unaware that Dahmer would be totally useless in hand-to-hand combat with Sly Stallone.

Similarly, it can't be very amusing or challenging to hunt down a battered old man that even the NFL wouldn't clear to play. Sure, Malone may be "the toughest prey" they've ever faced, and "The universe just doesn't seem capable of killing him," but in that case, wouldn't it be quicker and easier to just tie him up, hang him upside down, and club him to death like a piñata?

But as I noted above, Malone is essentially a bystander in his own movie — or maybe he’s supposed to be his character from Unbreakable, which would at least explain his otherworldly resilience.