Dawn of the Planet of the Apes makes me sad and happy. I'm happy that the fact that the film industry is fueled by blockbusters so that smart and interesting ones like this and The Avengers are made. It makes me sad because first most blockbusters aren't good. Plus a movie like this a "genre" movie that deals with big ideas, but is science-fiction is not able to win Oscars for Best Picture. Why do I say? Well this is a good movie. The thing that worried me the most about this film is that I actually did not like Rise of the Planet of the Apes as much as everybody else did. The effects were impressive,but the ideas were too smart for the film and the pacing kind of fell apart. Not to say that I didn't like some of it, it just had some major flaws. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a much better film. Why? Well a couple of reasons. Caesar is a more likable in this one as he has built a colony of apes. He isn't the vicious ape at the end of Rise. He has grown to have compassion. This makes him much more of a character to get behind and eliminated a problem I had with Rise. Also the action is better and the whole thing is much more characterized. So as I mentioned before Caesar has created a small colony of apes that have the ability to talk and have a larger intelligence than most apes. The humans have been almost wiped out by a disease caused by the drug that first made Caesar smart in the first place. This has allowed the colony to grow with Caesar as the leader. Just to get it out of the way Andy Serkis (Gollum from The Lord of the Rings) is obviously fantastic as Caesar. The motions are so real, as well as the emotions. Everything was top notch. Anyway one day some human survivors from a large colony come across the apes leaving both sides feel insecure. The apes don't want anything to do with the humans and wan't them to stay away. The humans want nothing to do with the apes and fear them,but need to get to a dam so they can use the hydroelectric power. They have to go through the apes to do so. After situations which I will not say to keep spoilers out of this review. They end up clashing. This is a modern day Apes movie so the effects are just as good here with the motion capture performances to back them up. As I said before Serkis as Caesar is one of the best CGI characters of all time. The other apes are all played well expressing a surprising amount of emotion. Caesar's friend Maurice and his general Koba are standouts. The The human cast is good,but they are out shined. Jason Clarke is good,but again is out shined, same with Gary Oldman. All of that is good,but good action is action supported by characters. The events that happen in the film are leading to the future presented in the original 1968 classic and the more you realize the consequences of characters actions the more you realize the big picture. There is a spectacular moment at the ending of the film where Caesar must except a mistake his kind made because it's the only thing to do to make sure of their survival. There is a fight that is on the borderline of badass but actually becomes tragic because the consequences of it will lead to loss of life and humanity on both sides. We don't need more Transformers "save the earth films" (OK The Avengers is a good one) we need action films that have consequences and meaning. Like this one. Two small problems. Some stories are kind of left open as well as I said the human cast really is not as good as the apes, but other than that this is really good. So Dawn of the Planet of the Apes turned out good. Like one of the best movies of the year. Hmm. I give Dawn of the Planet of the Apes a 9 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |