Dawn of The Planet of The Apes is "The Dark Knight" Of Ape Films

Fifteen years has passed since we last saw Ceaser and The Rise of The Planet of The Apes. In that time, Caesar (Andy Serkis) has now established an ape colony just outside the city of San Francisco. With two sons to protect, Caesar lives his life in peace, guiding his ape brethren in the ways of loyalty, family and respect.

With a deadly virus having wiped out most of mankind combined with having not seen a human in almost two years, Caesar presumes the humans race have all but perished. That is until Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and a band of men cross paths with the apes, creating fear, hostility and above all, violence.

With the knowledge that ape and human are both eager to pull the trigger, it’s up to Malcolm and Caesar to co-exsist and work out their differences. With human leader Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) blaming the apes for the epidemic and ape lieutenant Koba (Toby Kebbell) seeing first hand the cruelty of mankind, the dogs of war are barking and a solution must be found or else the result will be all out war.

The Good – All Hail Caeser!

There are many, and I mean MANY, reasons to go out and see this film. The visual effect are some of the best I have ever seen, the action sequences top notch and powerful moments that evoke so much emotion.

But if I had to pin point the best feature of this film, It was Andy Serkis’s performance as Caesar. This man has become a pioneer in modern filmmaking. He showed us what was possible with VFX characters in the Lord of The Rings films and In this film he takes that talent even further.

Every bit of Caesar’s performance comes from Andy and you can’t believe you’re eyes when you’re watching the screen. He evokes terror, humility, compassion, guilt, empathy, pride, betrayal and so much more. This performance is definitely Oscar worthy and it’s a shame he may not even get the recognition he deserves.

The Bad – Not much character development

With Caesar being such a complex character, you want everyone else on the screen to be just as interesting and dynamic as he is. This film has a lot of stellar performances in it, but most of the characters are pretty one dimensional.

You have your straight laced hero in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), you have your straight up ape haters in Carver (Kirk Acevedo) and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) and human haters in Koba (Toby Kebbell). None of them seemed to have much have more going on than what the story needed them to be.

When you compare them to Caesar, who just had so many conflicting emotions to play with, they come across as point A to point B characters. That being said, everyone still gives amazing performances.

Verdict

Powerful. Suspenseful. Surprisingly Emotional. Dawn of The Planet of The Apes will exceed your expectations. This film was one of the best sequels I have seen all summer and a strong contender for one of the best films of the year so far.

This film isn’t just action packed but it’s a smart movie as well, creating many relevant themes and metaphors for race issues and political warfare.

Dawn of The Planet of the Apes proves that with the right talent and creativity, big budget blockbusters can give you your explosions and still remain intelligent and extraordinary. Are you taking notes, Michael Bay? 

 

Rating: 9.5/10