Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

• Directed by Matt Reeves
• June 26, 2014 (Palace of Fine Arts) / July 11, 2014 (US)
• Based on characters created by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and premises from the 1963 book Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

Human survivors struggle to rebuild after the devastation of the Simian Flu while Caesar tries to maintain control over his expanding ape community.

Much like its predecessor Dawn of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t use the Planet of the Apes concept for social commentary or anything like that. I do enjoy this trilogy of films. Just not as much as the original series. These are all about telling action oriented dramatic stories. The story is largely propelled by bigotry and biases on both sides which leads into also excessive stupidity creating even more problems. I do get that being on the edge of survival after living comfortably can make people angry but sometimes in this movie it makes people downright stupid in a way that feels more like driving a story than organic. “We need to create a problem so dumb decision time.”

Carver (Kirk Acevedo) is understandable at first but he makes repeated idiotic decisions as well as seemingly taking the stance that apes created the flu which defies logic on any level. He clearly thinks the apes are behind the disease, but he was also surprised by their intelligence and ability to speak when he initially came across them.

It also bothers me how Dreyfuss (Gary Oldman) gets framed as wrong for the actions he’s taking to end the conflict. Maybe not the best idea but you have an invading force trying to wipe out everybody in the city (or planning to anyway) and he’s desperate to save everyone he knows. It may be brutal, but it would certainly be effective. So how is he kind of if at all in the wrong?

And then there is the human leader Malcolm (Jason Clarke) who is trying to keep peace at all costs. Not wanting conflict because conflict does not always end well is good, but it feels like he’s going out of his way to not fight to the point of putting himself and the survivors in a far more dangerous position than they need to be. He is even upset that help is coming which is something a short time before the events of the film they would have been cheering over. Genocide for his settlement is on the horizon but he has an issue with doing something effective about it.

The only character who seems to have a relatively realistic concept of anything is Caesar (Andy Sirkis). Was that by design or a happy accident on the part of the script writers? There’s a nice balance of struggling for peace but realizing war and even killing may be necessary to maintain peace on any level. He struggles with what he wants and what he must do. Caesar also has the added weight of keeping a growing family safe.

What makes this movie for me is that the good guy of Caesar and the bad guy of Koba (Toby Kebbell) are diametrically opposed. They do start out as friends but as the story progresses their divergent philosophies prevent them from remaining united with anger and rage coming to the surface on the part of Koba who sees ALL humans as guilty of the torment he experienced. Their experiences have been so vastly different that when push comes to shove neither can see the other side. These are not two people/characters who are the same but go about things differently. These are two very conflicting philosophies.

The CGI used to accomplish the adult apes has aged well. There is much more nuance and general detail that makes them feel real. That baby ape we see looks fake as f**k though. Possibly because it was CGI and contained no motion capture.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an entertaining film. Despite my issues (I grew up on the originals) it is worth watching.