It’s been a little over a century since the publication of Richard Connell‘s seminal short story, The Most Dangerous Game, a tale of a big game hunter who finds himself stranded on an island where a lunatic aristocratic Cossack hunts humans for sport. The brutal simplicity of its premise has left such an indelible mark that filmmakers still cleave to it a hundred years on. The basic concept of a lone protagonist having to match wits with a hunter, transforming man, the apex predator, into prey, has been reworked and reimagined over and over, in everything from direct adaptations, to action films like Predator or Hard Target, and it seems that Netflix has finally decided to try its hand at the idea. It’s rather a shame then, that despite there being a lot of potential here, the final result is all a bit of a let down.

Apex tells the story of extreme sport enthusiast, Sasha (Charlize Theron) who having lost her boyfriend Tommy (Eric Bana) in a climbing accident in Norway, has taken a trip to Australia, seeking the solace of kayaking in the outback rapids to soothe her guilt and grief. But once out in the depths of the bush, she finds herself at the mercy of crazy Biltong-making sadist Ben (Taron Egerton), who wants to hunt her, and cheerfully gives her a head start before shambling after her with a crossbow. What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse, as Sasha has to try and use her physical skills and mountaineering prowess to counter Ben’s knowledge of the outback, in order to escape being made into next month’s supply of jerky!

To give all those involved their due, it’s clear that a lot of preparation, as well as blood, sweat and tears, went into making Apex. Egerton and Theron are lean, muscular machines, who do a huge amount of their own stunt-work. Theron especially, is showcased repeatedly contorting herself against a real rock face, and underwent extensive training to become a proficient rock-climber and mountaineer for the film. Similarly, Egerton goes full crazy mode, switching from an easy-going affability early on, before revealing the full depths of insanity in a hyperactive turn which shows that he can play a scenery-chewing villain spectacularly. The cinematography by Lawrence Sher captures the terrifying magnitude of the Blue Mountains, from towering rock-faces and plunging chasms, to the sheer overpowering green hell of the densest bush.

The problem is that, all of that potential and hard work lands flatly in a movie that forgets the simple truth that you have to care what happens to the characters to stay invested. It would be unfair to say that Apex has a terrible script but rather it’s just painfully mediocre, horribly shallow and largely predictable. The story is largely threadbare, giving the audience either nothing at all about the characters, or dropping clumps of ungainly and unrealistic exposition. It’s especially bad in the opening scenes, where the audience is battered over the head by being repeatedly told and shown that Sasha is too hasty and impetuous, and isn’t safety conscious enough. Which makes the opening feel more like a countdown until the more sensible Tommy takes an inevitable tumble to his death. Things get worse later, as Sasha arrives in Australia and is immediately confronted by toothless, hillbilly-looking kangaroo hunters, who badger her in a vaguely sexist manner. It’s clearly a nod and a wink to Deliverance, with a dash of Wolf Creek, but it’s so blunt and basic that it feels like screenwriting by numbers.

The film also never quite manages to make Sasha a likable character. While the character is understandably grief-stricken for most of the movie, and largely in a state of concentrated terror, she’s almost entirely cold and off-putting, which jars with Egerton’s almost cartoonishly fun diabolical turn. It doesn’t help that the film never quite manages to make it feel like Sasha has atoned for the accident which she clearly causes in the opening minutes, and as a result feels like it’s from an almost entirely different film. Any time the film tries to make the audience feel something it falls flat, or feels contrived rather than flavouring the events or making things resonate in any way.

It’s hard to say whether this is down to the inexperience of the screenwriter, Jeremy Robbins, whose main previously credited work is as a story editor on The Purge TV series. It could equally have been a longer or more complex script that was cut down, which could also explain why Eric Bana’s scenes feel weirdly truncated and awkwardly edited. But going by the previous work of director Baltasar Kormákur, it’s not a far cry to say that he simply isn’t great at wringing character out of these situations, and is more interested in just creating tension and action set pieces.

At the end of the day, this is an hour and a half of occasionally engaging action-thriller slop, which isn’t awful or unwatchable, but stands as a poor substitute for countless other films that have done everything it tries to do, far better, and with more lasting effect.

Available on Netflix Now