Apex

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.

What do Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis have in common right now? They both acted in some entertaining movies in the past, where they were okay actors, not great but okay, and now they just sign up for anything. It looks like it doesn't matter to them how bad the script is. If it pays they'll do it. I wonder if they even read the script. No Nicolas Cage in Apex though, he chose to ruin our movie evening with Prisoners of the Ghostland instead. Bruce Willis was the one chosen to ruin our movie evening this time. It looked like he was not to bothered to deliver this time. The rest of the cast tried something but overal it was of the same level. The worst thing about Apex is the plot. Who writes this kind of garbage? And even worse, who decides to make a movie after reading that garbage? I started substracting a point (or a star in IMDb's rating system) every time there was a cringing scene, where you thought it couldn't be dumber. I was already at zero stars left after half an hour so that wasn't the right way to rate this stinker. I'll just give it two stars because there are worse movies, but it was borderline to be honest.

I am already aware that Bruce Willis has gone down the road of Nicholas Cage in mass producing bunch of cheap low budget films. However, being a Willis fan, I thought I'll give him some benefit of the doubt. Both Breach and Cosmic Sin was just down right worst film I've ever seen.

However, when I read the synopsis of this film, I thought that it was simple and much easier to accomplish for an action film. How can they mess this up? It is basically rich people hunt humans for fun and instead they have no idea they signed up an "action" hero who will turn the table on them. The idea is similar to "Surviving the Game" with Ice-T, "Running Man" with Arnold, and even the more recent "The Hunt."

You have ONE job, which is to make a fun exciting no brain action film where the action hero waste a lot of snotty bad guys. So HOW can this film fail so badly!?!?

Without giving spoilers, it is BORING BORING BORING. It just talks talks talks, while you wait for something to happen that never really happens. And the snotty bad guys? Well, you expect Willis to be the one wasting them, but instead they wasted themselves and in boring ways. BORING BORING BORING to the last minute. Even in the climax battle, it was just... YAWN.

HOW CAN ANYONE MESS UP SUCH A BASIC FORMULA IS BEYOND ME!

Sorry Willis, this is the 3rd strike. No more. $14.99 on Amazon Prime? Consider that a tip for all the wonderful films you have made in the past which entertained me.

Wow, who knew that a movie that had both Neal McDonough and Neal McDonough on the cast list could be that bad? Let's not beat around the bush here. "Apex" was an abysmal movie from writers Edward Drake and Corey Large.

The storyline is about a group of hunters that pay to go to a remote island to hunt human prey for sports. Oh wow, how very original. Yeah, it is not like that has been done a hundred times before director Edward Drake got to the helm of "Apex". Right.

Not only was the storyline unoriginal in "Apex", it was also downright boring and bland. And this was by no means up to what you usually expect and get from the likes of Neal McDonough or Bruce Willis. Not even by a long shot.

This movie offered nothing enjoyable or entertaining really throughout the 1 hour and 34 minutes that it trotted on and on for. So making it through to the end, to the insanely predictable and generic end that is, is quite the accomplishment. I managed to do so, but boy was it a struggle.

Even the acting performances in "Apex" were sluggish, and it felt like both Neal McDonough and Bruce Willis were here just to make a quick buck. Their performances were subpar and cringeworthy at times.

You might want to do yourself a favor and stay well clear of "Apex", because it is simply not worth the time, effort or money.

My rating of "Apex" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

It's a combination of a bored Bruce Willis making easy money, ridiculous characters, terrible acting, terrible special effects and green screen matting from 1970's, trying to tell the stupidest version of the "men hunting men" story. Avoid at all cost.