Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3.5/4
Starring: Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Gary Oldman, Kodi Smitt-McPhee, Andy Serkis, Toby Kebell
Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Violence and Action, and Brief Strong Language
I know, I know...
I said I'd go see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" right after I saw the first one. And I did! I just missed the first few minutes of the movie (actually, probably only about a minute), and it is a personal policy that if I miss any part of the movie, I don't review it (this is why there is no review of "Mirror Mirror," among others). So, I've finally gotten a chance to see it again and review it.
I mentioned that James Berardinelli said that "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is much better than the first one (3.5/4 vs. 2.5/4). He was right. This is an improvement on all fronts. The plot is more complex, the storytelling is considerably better, and the stakes are higher.
After the events in the first film, the medicine that was supposed to cure Alzheimer's instead made the apes super intelligent. It also created a plague that wiped out the majority of humanity. The apes are now in control of the planet, and the ones in the remnants of San Francisco are led by Caesar (Serkis), the ape who was cared for by a kind human named Will Rodman (played by James Franco...he and baby Caesar appear in a brief clip in this film, although I'm not sure if it was made specifically for the sequel or if it was in the original). They haven't seen any humans in two years, so they assume that they are extinct. But they aren't. The humans are living in a man-made compound in the city and are led by Dreyfus (Oldman). But their fuel supply is running low, and their only hope is to get a nearby dam working again. That puts them right in the path of Caesar and his large community of apes. Caesar reluctantly gives them passage. As an uneasy truce builds between Caesar and the small group of humans sent to repair the dam, there are those who believe that a truce can only lead to failure and death.
The true strength of the movie is that there are no true villains. The closest we come to one is Koba (Kebell), Caesar's right-hand ape. Koba does some awful things, but not out of pure malevolence. He was tortured in the lab, and therefore sees all humans as evil. Caesar, on the other hand, has seen both great good and great evil come from human kind, which gives him a guarded practicality towards them. He takes a "wait and see" attitude and eventually trusts Malcolm (Clarke), Ellie (Russell), and Alexander (Smit-McPhee). Koba believes that this can only lead to betrayal and the destruction of all apes, and intends to strike first while his enemy is weakest.
The performances are effective, but this isn't an actors show. We accept the characters are human beings that we care about, and that's all that the movie demands. Nevertheless, Jason Clarke and Keri Russell are solid in their thinly written parts. Kodi Smit-McPhee has little to do. Gary Oldman is disappointing. It's not that he's bad, it's that, save for being a little more black and white, he's exactly like Jim Gordon from Nolan's "Batman" trilogy. Oldman is too talented to be pigeonholed. Of the humans, the one who stands out is Kirk Acevedo. He plays Carver, a man whose suspicion of the apes threatens to make any sort of peace impossible. He blames the apes for everything (to the point where its the equivalent of racism) and stubbornly sticks to that view without bothering to censor himself. He's easy to hate.
Andy Serkis is the go-to guy for motion capture roles. After playing Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" movies (where he would have gotten an Oscar nomination, and perhaps a win, had he not been ruled ineligible due to the fact that Gollum was created onscreen by CGI), he's a known name, and even when you can't see any resemblance to his past characters, studios demand him. It is perhaps fitting that an actor with his considerable range and versatility can make a CGI character so completely different. The movements and the voice are completely unlike Gollum in every way; you'd never know it was the same guy.
As Koba, Toby Kebbell is truly vicious (credit the computer animators for that...his hideously scarred face pumps up the fierce), but Kebbell allows us to see that Koba at least has his heart in the right place. He just commits some horrible deeds to get there.
There are two problems with the film. First, director Matt Reeves keeps things too low-key. This formula, which bears some resemblance to "Avatar," deserves to have the scale and melodrama pumped up to an 11. "Avatar" worked because it never tried for subtlety. Reeves wants his movie to be grittier and more realistic, but by doing so, he limits the story's power. Also, the ending is not satisfying. The need to set up the sequel leads to a pretty big and obvious contrivance. A rewrite or two would have smoothed things out and made it more credible.
Nevertheless, whatever flaws the film may have (and there really aren't many), let no one say that this movie isn't worth seeing!
Starring: Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Gary Oldman, Kodi Smitt-McPhee, Andy Serkis, Toby Kebell
Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Violence and Action, and Brief Strong Language
I know, I know...
I said I'd go see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" right after I saw the first one. And I did! I just missed the first few minutes of the movie (actually, probably only about a minute), and it is a personal policy that if I miss any part of the movie, I don't review it (this is why there is no review of "Mirror Mirror," among others). So, I've finally gotten a chance to see it again and review it.
I mentioned that James Berardinelli said that "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is much better than the first one (3.5/4 vs. 2.5/4). He was right. This is an improvement on all fronts. The plot is more complex, the storytelling is considerably better, and the stakes are higher.
After the events in the first film, the medicine that was supposed to cure Alzheimer's instead made the apes super intelligent. It also created a plague that wiped out the majority of humanity. The apes are now in control of the planet, and the ones in the remnants of San Francisco are led by Caesar (Serkis), the ape who was cared for by a kind human named Will Rodman (played by James Franco...he and baby Caesar appear in a brief clip in this film, although I'm not sure if it was made specifically for the sequel or if it was in the original). They haven't seen any humans in two years, so they assume that they are extinct. But they aren't. The humans are living in a man-made compound in the city and are led by Dreyfus (Oldman). But their fuel supply is running low, and their only hope is to get a nearby dam working again. That puts them right in the path of Caesar and his large community of apes. Caesar reluctantly gives them passage. As an uneasy truce builds between Caesar and the small group of humans sent to repair the dam, there are those who believe that a truce can only lead to failure and death.
The true strength of the movie is that there are no true villains. The closest we come to one is Koba (Kebell), Caesar's right-hand ape. Koba does some awful things, but not out of pure malevolence. He was tortured in the lab, and therefore sees all humans as evil. Caesar, on the other hand, has seen both great good and great evil come from human kind, which gives him a guarded practicality towards them. He takes a "wait and see" attitude and eventually trusts Malcolm (Clarke), Ellie (Russell), and Alexander (Smit-McPhee). Koba believes that this can only lead to betrayal and the destruction of all apes, and intends to strike first while his enemy is weakest.
The performances are effective, but this isn't an actors show. We accept the characters are human beings that we care about, and that's all that the movie demands. Nevertheless, Jason Clarke and Keri Russell are solid in their thinly written parts. Kodi Smit-McPhee has little to do. Gary Oldman is disappointing. It's not that he's bad, it's that, save for being a little more black and white, he's exactly like Jim Gordon from Nolan's "Batman" trilogy. Oldman is too talented to be pigeonholed. Of the humans, the one who stands out is Kirk Acevedo. He plays Carver, a man whose suspicion of the apes threatens to make any sort of peace impossible. He blames the apes for everything (to the point where its the equivalent of racism) and stubbornly sticks to that view without bothering to censor himself. He's easy to hate.
Andy Serkis is the go-to guy for motion capture roles. After playing Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" movies (where he would have gotten an Oscar nomination, and perhaps a win, had he not been ruled ineligible due to the fact that Gollum was created onscreen by CGI), he's a known name, and even when you can't see any resemblance to his past characters, studios demand him. It is perhaps fitting that an actor with his considerable range and versatility can make a CGI character so completely different. The movements and the voice are completely unlike Gollum in every way; you'd never know it was the same guy.
As Koba, Toby Kebbell is truly vicious (credit the computer animators for that...his hideously scarred face pumps up the fierce), but Kebbell allows us to see that Koba at least has his heart in the right place. He just commits some horrible deeds to get there.
There are two problems with the film. First, director Matt Reeves keeps things too low-key. This formula, which bears some resemblance to "Avatar," deserves to have the scale and melodrama pumped up to an 11. "Avatar" worked because it never tried for subtlety. Reeves wants his movie to be grittier and more realistic, but by doing so, he limits the story's power. Also, the ending is not satisfying. The need to set up the sequel leads to a pretty big and obvious contrivance. A rewrite or two would have smoothed things out and made it more credible.
Nevertheless, whatever flaws the film may have (and there really aren't many), let no one say that this movie isn't worth seeing!
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