← Back to Reviews
in
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
Dawn is an intelligent spectacular Hollywood blockbuster
When Rise of the Planet of the Apes was first released, I found myself laughing at the trailers. I thought it was going to be terrible. Boy was I wrong, it turned out to be an engaging thrilling spectacle. I don’t know why I seem to keep underestimating this series because I didn’t expect this sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to be that great. Not only is the film great, it’s probably the best summer blockbuster this year and will no doubt make my top ten list by the year’s end.
The virus at the end of the original film has almost wiped out humanity. There are small groups of survivors who are genetically immune to the virus. One of these survivors is Malcolm (Jason Clarke) who is on a mission to find an alternative power source since his group of survivors, including Gary Oldman and Keri Russell, are running out of their resources. While out in the forest, he runs into the apes, ruled by Caesar (Andy Serkis). Despite an uneasy truce between man and ape, tension boils and war becomes inevitable.
I know people were trying to rally for an Oscar nomination for Serkis and his portrayal of Caesar. That fell on deaf ears. This time around, expect them to make even louder noise. Serkis delivers his best performance in motion capture to date and gives us a deep and inspirational character here. Caesar is a born leader; he commands the screen just as much as he commands his apes. Stop with this nonsense of what is his performance and what the do the animators manipulate. Look at what is brought to the table; we have a compelling character that we care for. I found myself on the edge of my seat with excitement whenever Caesar was on the screen and his second in command Koba is right there with him. Scarred from numerous testing by humans, Koba is a classic tragic character. You know that he doesn’t trust the humans; his experience with them is the complete opposite of Caesar’s. You know where he is coming from and you know where he is heading. His actions are justified in his eyes and you never outright hate him. This is what great writing, performance, direction and stellar animation is here. We have two unforgettable characters at odds with each other, even though they both respect and love one another.
If you were impressed with the motion capture animation of the first film, marvel at what they’ve accomplished here. You’ll rub your eyes a few times thinking these apes were real. The attention to detail is astonishing and should rightly be awarded come Oscar time. A film like Transformers adds nothing new, special or awe-inspiring in terms of its effects. Sure it looks cool, but this film makes the special effects integral to the emotional core of the story. The facial expressions on these apes make you feel more emotion than what many actors try to achieve their whole career. Reeve’s stages exciting action sequences in the third act, when both the humans and apes collide. The special effects stay first class. You never lose sight of where you are in the action. Reeves constantly makes sure that we as the audience, are aware of the action in correspondence to the characters. It’s refreshing to be able to see what’s going on up on that screen. All building up to the emotional climax. This film simply has it all.
It runs a long 130 minutes and it feels a tad long due to some pacing issues, but a lot of those scenes are to flesh out the characters. Both apes and humans are given their time and no one really gets the short stick. We spend most of our time with the apes, but we never are told to side against the humans. There are individuals on both sides that make stupid decisions. The film’s one clichéd hiccup is that it uses a one-dimensional character that has been written a thousand times before in these films to initiate the tension. I can handle one hotheaded trigger-happy one-dimensional character in this piece because we are given deep and interesting characters to actually care about.
Dawn is an intelligent spectacular Hollywood blockbuster in a time when there are thousands of mindless boring flicks that companies just throw money at. This is proof, right here, that with patience, care and talent you can have an engaging thrilling film that people will want to see and talk about. Stop with the product placement, high priced trash that gets spit out of the ass end of Hollywood. We need more films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
Dawn is an intelligent spectacular Hollywood blockbuster
When Rise of the Planet of the Apes was first released, I found myself laughing at the trailers. I thought it was going to be terrible. Boy was I wrong, it turned out to be an engaging thrilling spectacle. I don’t know why I seem to keep underestimating this series because I didn’t expect this sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to be that great. Not only is the film great, it’s probably the best summer blockbuster this year and will no doubt make my top ten list by the year’s end.
The virus at the end of the original film has almost wiped out humanity. There are small groups of survivors who are genetically immune to the virus. One of these survivors is Malcolm (Jason Clarke) who is on a mission to find an alternative power source since his group of survivors, including Gary Oldman and Keri Russell, are running out of their resources. While out in the forest, he runs into the apes, ruled by Caesar (Andy Serkis). Despite an uneasy truce between man and ape, tension boils and war becomes inevitable.
I know people were trying to rally for an Oscar nomination for Serkis and his portrayal of Caesar. That fell on deaf ears. This time around, expect them to make even louder noise. Serkis delivers his best performance in motion capture to date and gives us a deep and inspirational character here. Caesar is a born leader; he commands the screen just as much as he commands his apes. Stop with this nonsense of what is his performance and what the do the animators manipulate. Look at what is brought to the table; we have a compelling character that we care for. I found myself on the edge of my seat with excitement whenever Caesar was on the screen and his second in command Koba is right there with him. Scarred from numerous testing by humans, Koba is a classic tragic character. You know that he doesn’t trust the humans; his experience with them is the complete opposite of Caesar’s. You know where he is coming from and you know where he is heading. His actions are justified in his eyes and you never outright hate him. This is what great writing, performance, direction and stellar animation is here. We have two unforgettable characters at odds with each other, even though they both respect and love one another.
If you were impressed with the motion capture animation of the first film, marvel at what they’ve accomplished here. You’ll rub your eyes a few times thinking these apes were real. The attention to detail is astonishing and should rightly be awarded come Oscar time. A film like Transformers adds nothing new, special or awe-inspiring in terms of its effects. Sure it looks cool, but this film makes the special effects integral to the emotional core of the story. The facial expressions on these apes make you feel more emotion than what many actors try to achieve their whole career. Reeve’s stages exciting action sequences in the third act, when both the humans and apes collide. The special effects stay first class. You never lose sight of where you are in the action. Reeves constantly makes sure that we as the audience, are aware of the action in correspondence to the characters. It’s refreshing to be able to see what’s going on up on that screen. All building up to the emotional climax. This film simply has it all.
It runs a long 130 minutes and it feels a tad long due to some pacing issues, but a lot of those scenes are to flesh out the characters. Both apes and humans are given their time and no one really gets the short stick. We spend most of our time with the apes, but we never are told to side against the humans. There are individuals on both sides that make stupid decisions. The film’s one clichéd hiccup is that it uses a one-dimensional character that has been written a thousand times before in these films to initiate the tension. I can handle one hotheaded trigger-happy one-dimensional character in this piece because we are given deep and interesting characters to actually care about.
Dawn is an intelligent spectacular Hollywood blockbuster in a time when there are thousands of mindless boring flicks that companies just throw money at. This is proof, right here, that with patience, care and talent you can have an engaging thrilling film that people will want to see and talk about. Stop with the product placement, high priced trash that gets spit out of the ass end of Hollywood. We need more films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.