Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review
Posted by Stephen Lambrechts - 9/7/2014
The surprise hit of 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes defied all odds by reinvigorating a franchise that had been stagnant since Tim Burton's remake of the original film over a decade ago. Thanks to advancements in performance capture technology, it was now possible to make a film where the lead character was a chimpanzee that could not only carry the entire picture, but also out-emote his human co-stars. No actor has more experience in this field than Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), a modern day Lon Chaney who (with the assistance of his team of animators) can completely disappear into roles once thought impossible to achieve practically. With the character of Caesar, leader of the ape rebellion, Serkis has found his best role yet.
Taking place 10 years after the events of the first film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes begins with a retelling of the fall of humanity after the outbreak of 'Simian Flu'. It's a man-made virus that was once hoped to bring Alzheimer's to an end, but served only to make apes more intelligent and make humans more dead. Small outposts of survivors are scattered around the globe, with the one in San Francisco led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) and his right-hand man, Malcolm (Jason Clarke).
Meanwhile, Caesar and his growing colony of increasingly intelligent apes reside in the forests just outside the city. Here we see a burgeoning ape civilsation. While it’s nowhere near the level of the one in the original Planet of the Apes film, we see the building blocks on which that level of sophistication is built. Apes mostly communicate in sign language, but are seen learning the alphabet and ingesting ideologies such as ‘ape not kill ape’ and ‘apes together strong’. Add to that the addition of a newborn son for Caesar, and everything in Apeville is going just peachy.
That is until a band of humans trespass onto the apes’ turf and stupidly shoot one of the apes, sparking a hostile situation between the two groups. Turns out the humans are about to lose all power unless they can activate the dam generators situated on the apes’ land. Caesar trusts Malcolm to be a good man and allows it, to the protestations of Koba (Toby Kebbell), the scarily scarred-up lab-ape from Rise. His hatred of humans for what they used to do to him may very well be the factor that leads this delicate truce to crumble. Can Caesar and Malcolm keep both sides from going to war?
While Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a fantastic film (which still might have some of the edge in terms of emotional resonance), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes immediately feels like a more prestige film event. The cast in Dawn is the first notable improvement. While everyone in Rise did fine work, it was evident that they were mostly cast based on their status as dependable leads in Fox’s back catalogue. As great as James Franco is, he doesn’t immediately scream ‘scientist’, and his pairing with Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto didn’t really generate any chemistry to speak of. Everyone in Dawn feels cast because they’re the right person for the job.
Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) is not an actor that would usually find himself as the leading man of a huge tentpole film, and that’s maybe why his casting works so well. He feels realistic, selling his character’s situation completely with very little effort. Keri Russell does fine work opposite him as Ellie, a doctor who also happens to be Malcolm’s significant other. You also can’t go wrong with Gary Oldman; his character may be one of the film’s chief antagonists, but his motives are completely understandable. The film wisely avoids making any of the characters evil for the sake of it. Their circumstances make them sympathetic, even if you don’t want them to succeed.
Gone are the cheesy and forced references to the original series and somewhat rushed pace of Rise. Dawn has more room to breathe, opening the film with an almost entirely dialogue-free first act that takes us through a day in the life in the world of the apes. The scope is also much larger this time, with San Francisco reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and apes numbering in the thousands. While Caesar’s character arc was more emotionally devastating in Rise, Dawn manages to outclass that film in almost every other way.
While Serkis continues to do ‘chimpressive’ work in his second outing as Caesar, the standout ape performance of the film comes from Toby Kebbell (RocknRolla, Dead Man’s Shoes) as the violent and angry Koba. Serkis doesn’t have as much of an arc this time around, which is a slight shame as one of the most powerful elements of Rise was seeing Serkis’ happy chimp grow completely cold as his faith in humans starts to diminish. His performance here is much more subtle, allowing for Kebbell to run away with the film’s most showy role. His Koba is frightening in his calculating ways. Completely and absolutely menacing, the way in which he lulls humans into a false sense of security by playing the happy chimp is riveting.
Bravo to Fox for realising what an incredible rejuvenation of a franchise that Rise of the Planet of the Apes was, and for pulling out all the stops to make its sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes an even more fantastic film. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) has done an 'apesolutely' incredible job, making a sequel that manages to outclass an already stellar first film. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the best summer movie of the year so far. We can't wait to see what Reeves does with the next film in the franchise.
★★★★½
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