Apex puts our greatest action star, Charlize Theron, through the paces once again in this thriller with sheer rock climbs, dangerous rapids, and a chase in the woods with a lunatic.

Apex opens with Sasha (Charlize Theron) and her man Tommy (Eric Bana) sleeping in a tent hanging on the sheer rock wall of a mountain in Norway. As a viewer with vertigo issues, these first scenes nearly made me fall on the floor. I only got through it by convincing my brain they were really in a studio somewhere with a nice thick mat on the floor just a few feet beneath them.

Charlize Theron learned to rock climb for the film and did her own stunts.

Tommy flew down the mountain a little too fast for his health. Sasha was now alone. Fast forward 5 months and Sasha is in Australia to kayak down a rapids-filled river for the fun of it. By herself.

She meets some creepy guys at a gas station. She also meets Ben (Taron Egerton) who seems helpful. Ben even gives her some tips on where to start her kayak journey. He’s there at the gas station selling jerky, which he makes himself and which he named after his mother.

There are no bears in Australia, which is unfortunate because a bear would have been a better companion in the woods than Ben. Ben turned out to be a psycho killer. The next thing he wanted to kill was Sasha.

When the film began I was convinced Sasha was crazy. Her thrill seeking activities were too dangerous to make sense. But Ben was a whole other kind of crazy. When he unleashed that crazy on Sasha, it meant a battle of wits, endurance, strength, determination, and courage. That’s what Sasha brought to the survival battle. Ben only brought crazy and an intimate knowledge of the environment.

This film was about action, not character development. The two main cast gave it 110% on both fronts, even though we got no backstory as to why they were the way they were. Spectacular spots with slot canyons, rivers, steep rock walls, and forest wherever there was a semi-flat spot made for some stunning chase scenes.

The plot of Apex is well worn–bad man chases good woman. Even so it was beautiful to watch and a nail biter. I wouldn’t call it a great movie, but it was a good action movie. I appreciated that this could be real, it could actually happen this way. So many thriller type action movies are unrealistic and far-fetched. Apex gets extra points for that.

It would be amazing on a big screen, but it went straight to Netflix, where it’s streaming now. If you watch it, let me know what you thought of it.