Former cop Thomas Malone (Bruce Willis) having been given life imprisonment for a his part in a burgulary gone wrong is approach by West Zaroff (Alexia Fast), a representative of a company called Apex which arranges "hunts" for wealthy or powerful clientele where the prey are human. With the promise of a clean slate should he survive Thomas takes the deal and is brought to hunting resort Apex Island where six hunters prepare to chase him with coldblooded Dr. Samuel Rainsford (Neal McDonough) the most driven of them all.
Directed by Edward John Drake and written by Corey William Large and Drake, Apex comes to us from the same team who gave us fellow Willis fronted Sci-Fi dreck Breach (Anti-Life) and Cosmic Sin. Filming during the covid pandemic in British Columbia, the movie has is slightly lower scale than Alien knock-off Breach or would be space battle epic Cosmic Sin, but despite a lower concept approach Apex feels like it's set in the same universe as the other movies complete with poorly integrated holograms, CGI cityscapes, and a general cheapness to the production design. And with Willis technically the main character but still appearing in it mostly through body doubling and limited footage of his character, Apex is pretty much on the same level as Cosmic Sin.
The framework established by Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game is one of the most copied frameworks for thrillers or action stories because it's simple but effective. One need only look at the likes of The Running Man, Hard Target, Surviving the Game, or even 2020s The Hunt for how reliable a premise this is for genre filmmakers....and Apex bungles it from the get go. Because of Willis' agreement with producers of his direct-to-video schlock the fact that Willis is playing the "hunted" rather than one of the hunters or the game warden is a terrible idea because it forces most of the movie's attention to be on the hunters, and that's not where the tension for this premise comes from. In order for this premise to work you need to focus on the one being hunted by building sympathy for them, creating a sense of desperation, and making the audience wonder "will they get out alive?". With Willis' introduction via exposition dump to the hunters (which no joke has references to OTHER better Willis movies including Unbreakable and 12 Monkeys, seriously) Willis is established as this unstoppable force with multiple scenes dedicated to inflating Willis' ego with how tough he is, but all of them are lies because aside from a 10 minute stretch at the tail end of the movie, most of the on screen killing is done by the hunters amongst themselves! Willis only has TWO major scenes where he does any actual action (technically three, but one of those was a poorly concealed body double so he doesn't deserve it). Most of the hunters are conniving, unstable, psychotic, backstabbing opportunists and do more killing and attempted killing of each other than they do Willis, and Willis is so relaxed in this movie that at one point goofy music plays while he smokes a cigar and eats berries (which are revealed to be hallucinogenic but that's NEVER paid off) and Willis' movement in this movie never goes above a light jog.
Apex maybe even more embarrassing than Cosmic Sin. For all Cosmic Sins faults it at least understood the villains of the movie shouldn't be a bigger threat to themselves than the hero. Apex is one of the dumbest, if not the dumbest takes on the simple formula established by The Most Dangerous Game I've ever seen. There is probably some value in mocking it among friends for it's lackluster production values (including a teleporter that's just three poles stuck in the ground) but aside from that this is brainless junk coasting on the fumes of a once respectable leading man whose just given up.
