Sunday, July 13, 2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) review


While I can’t say that 2011 was one of the best movie years in recent memory, I will say that it definitely had its fair share of surprisingly good films, like ‘The Muppets’ and ‘Fast Five’. But perhaps the biggest surprise of 2011 was ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, a reboot of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise most famous for the original 1968 film of the same name starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall and perhaps most infamous for director Tim Burton’s critically maligned 2001 remake, which resulted in 20th Century Fox abandoning their plans for a sequel, resulting in this new film being made. I’m not sure how many of us were actually looking forward to it, but in the end the film turned out to be pretty darn good for a few reasons. Not only was the film well-written, giving us a group of characters that we really cared about, but it also featured a phenomenal, Oscar-worthy performance by Andy Serkis in the lead role of the genetically-enhanced ape Caesar. This year, Caesar returns in ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ once again played by Serkis. This time, however, there are a lot of changes in the cast and crew. Matt Reeves (‘Cloverfield’) takes over for Rupert Wyatt as director and a new ensemble cast takes over in a film that takes place many years after the events of ‘Rise’. But in the end, ‘Dawn’ manages to be one of the rare sequels that is superior to its predecessor as it is just as well-written, well-acted, and impactful as the film that came before it and quite frankly does those things even better.

At the end of ‘Rise’, the ALZ-113 virus, developed by the biotech company Gen-Sys, began to spread across the world after an airline pilot became infected with it after coming into contact with a Gen-Sys employee that was the first human to truly become exposed to it. As this film begins, it is now 10 years later and the virus (AKA the ‘Simian Flu’) has spread all over the world eliminating most of the human population. While all of this is going on a community of apes, led by Caesar (Andy Serkis), have made a living in the Muir Woods but their peaceful home is soon invaded by a group of humans who are among those who survived the virus and are currently living in a safe-haven in nearby San Francisco. In order to keep the community’s power running as it is soon set to run out in a few weeks, its co-founder, Malcolm (Jason Clarke), leads a small group into the forest to try and find a dam that could provide them the power they need. But the only problem is that it’s located right near where the apes have set up their home, resulting in them having to go through it in order to reach the dam. Malcolm and his group do initially manage to gain the apes’ trust, but soon this peaceful truce comes to a standstill when one of Caesar’s ‘allies’ starts a war against the humans, who themselves have been preparing for war in fear of an attack by the apes.

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ effectively ups the scale and scope of the previous film, as you would normally expect sequels to do. But just like the previous film, the writing is the film’s greatest strength because it gives us characters that we really care about. For the first fifteen minutes or so of the film, the focus is entirely set on Caesar and the apes and because of this we are allowed to become fully immersed in the world of the apes and become attached to them. The visual effects for the apes are even better than they were in the previous film and will completely make you forget that these apes are just computer generated creatures pretty much as soon as the film begins. But of course, we do become invested in the human characters as well, specifically Malcolm, his wife Ellie (Keri Russell), and their son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who take over for the main characters of the previous film, who by this point have been dead for years being that they were at ‘ground zero’ when the Simian Flu first hit. In this film, we get to see how both sides, though different in many ways and generally mistrusting of each other for obvious reasons (the humans blame the apes for the virus (even though it actually isn’t their fault being that it was developed by Gen-Sys) and the apes are fearing about what the humans would do to them given the mistreatment that some of them were given back before the virus first spread), are basically striving for the same thing; they’re both just trying to survive in this post-virus world.

Ever since ‘The Two Towers’ was released, everyone has been asking the following question and after seeing this film, I do feel that I have to bring it up again here; why hasn’t Andy Serkis won an Oscar yet? Once again, he is phenomenal in this and in my opinion, this is the best role of his career; yes, I think he’s even better in these movies than he was in ‘Lord of the Rings’, one of the reasons being that if you really think about it, Caesar is a little more layered of a character than Gollum was. In fact, I think this is the film where Serkis gives his best overall performance to date. A key scene near the end of the film involving Caesar and his son Blue Eyes actually made me kind of emotional and that’s a testament to how truly great of an actor Andy Serkis is. I also have to give both of these recent ‘Apes’ films a lot of credit for getting a really good cast of human characters that aren’t necessarily a group of ‘A-list’ actors. I mean, of this cast, the one that most audiences would recognize would probably be Gary Oldman (who is of course excellent in this in a role that is actually much more complex than you might expect) but overall everyone does a very good job in this. Jason Clarke (who’s definitely one of the most underrated actors working today) comes off as very natural and likable in his role as does Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Clarke and Serkis in particular work off each other really well here, more so than Franco and Serkis in ‘Rise’.

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the rare sequels that actually manages to outshine its predecessor, which was also just as great for similar reasons. The direction by Matt Reeves is fantastic, as is the writing that allows us to sympathize with the key protagonists from both of the ‘sides’ in this movie; the humans and the apes. And after the film’s opening sequence, we are already invested in the characters and are fully immersed in their world. These two groups are both just trying to survive and in the post-‘Simian Flu’ world that they live in, that doesn’t really come so easily. Of course, Andy Serkis steals the show (seriously Academy, give this man an Oscar because he’s been long overdue for one) but is backed up by a terrific cast. All in all, ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the best summer blockbusters of this year and also one of the best sequels in recent memory because it does what good sequels do; expand on the universe as well as the overall scale and scope while also maintaining the great writing from the previous film. I know that some people are going to try and compare this film with a certain summer blockbuster that came out a few weeks ago (which I won’t name here but you might already know what film I’m talking about) given the very negative critical reaction towards that film but I’m not going to be one of those people seeing how I was one of those who did like the film and I’m also not one who compares films that often. But for the record, yes I will agree that ‘Dawn’ is the better film.


Rating: 5/5!

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