Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Review

Ten years after the outbreak of the simian flu that only 1 in 500 humans survived a group has moved into a fortified location in San Francisco. Their aim is to restart the hydro-electric dam in the nearby mountains, bring back civilisation, and contact any other human outposts that have managed to survive the conflicts post flu outbreak. The only problem is that the genetically modified Apes have built their own city near the dam and don't want humans returning. Engineer Malcolm manages to persuade Caesar, the ape leader, to allow a small team to work on the dam, but naturally the two species are soon at each other's throats.

Koba, a chimp that was cut up in a human lab, leads the ape troops, after Caesar is shot down, in a full scale assault on the human defences. A major battle erupts with huge casualties on both sides but eventually the Apes win. Koba has the humans rounded up and caged along with Caesar's Ape supporters. A slight glitch in Koba's plan is Caesar has survived the assassination attempt and is being cared for by Malcolm and his family. Can Caesar and Malcolm stop the war or will it descend into a battle to see who will be the planet's new rulers?

After the huge international success of the reboot The Planet of the Apes this sequel is looking to cement the franchise in punters minds and perhaps rival the original franchise movies. For mine the sequel is even better than the reboot, with Andy Serkis and co. delivering on what is going to be a major series of movies. While Planet got us into the mood for monkey shenanigans Dawn goes to much darker places and dare I say it is deserving of some Oscar shine next year. Regular horror fanatics will see what I did there yo. So let's break it down and see where the bananas land.

One of my biggest problems with the movie was with the human element, the Apes are handling brilliant and made me a believer, but the humans look like they have just stepped out of one of those Kathmandu stores rather than being a ragtag group of survivors. We're talking Rodeo drive haircuts, designer survival gear, and not a beard in sight. Director Matt Reeves needed to catch up with his Walking Dead viewing to see how survivors should look, here he throws up some Hollywood casting Agency's idea, and to be honest it sucks.

The Apes on the other hand are rocking it out hard. Our two principles Caesar and Koba, Dawn is more about the primates and less about the humans than the previous movie, look and act real and more importantly present fully formed personalities. Caesar is the thinker who isn't anti-human, he has lead his tribe to build an Ape city and established education etc. as the Apes continue to evolve. On the other hand Koba is the warrior who harbours anti-human feeling and is pretty much hot to trot on the war front. So in essence we have the pacifist leader versus the warlike aggressor, who will determine what shape their society takes. And there in is the beauty of Dawn, Apes can be villains along with their human counterparts, or they can take noble stands along with their human counterparts. The Writer collective in this movie are not moralising, revenge and anarchy live in all societies and is only waiting on the release valve to be given a nudge. And don't worry Maurice is back, love that big fella.

There's some disturbing, for purists, changes to the franchise already that set the new movies apart from the previous sequence of flicks. Personally I think this is a good thing, but hey all power to you if you are an original Planet loyalist. The epidemic that explains the demise of the human race was in the original movie a virus that knocked out dogs and cats leaving Chimps etc. as pets and then manual labours, cause dogs and cats did the menial jobs previously or something !?!. The warlike simians were the Gorillas, due to bad PR on their part, but now the mantel quite rightly falls on chimps, an Ape that actually does hunt for meat, Gorillas are of course vegetarians. But there are still some winks to the past, a space mission has disappeared for example, so for mine it's all good.

Director Matt Reeves has his movie well-paced, though slow to begin - which was fine for me but probably not for the low attention crowd, and things romp to the expected clash between the species. At no stage did I note any audience member checking their mobile, which either meant the movie had everyone spell bound or I caught a session with a particular considerate audience who know to turn off their fucking phones. Honestly I don't go see half the movies I would normal catch each year at the cinema due to the dickwads that can't leave their phone alone for more than five minutes. I'm figuring the movie was strong enough to dissuade audience members from being inconsiderate twats rather than any natural inclination from the local Bogan crowd. No there wasn't a standing ovation, there were no walk outs, but neither is the norm with Aussie audiences, we catch the movie and then discuss it later, over latte, with biscotti. The crew I went with were pretty happy with life, no one found an issue with the latest simian rampage.

The major achievement of the movie for mine was the actual Apes we saw on the screen, I was a believer in what was being shown, and commend the people working on this aspect of the movie. The CGI was faultless and showed no signs of cracks, the computer generated Apes and backgrounds left my bottom jaw on the ground, finally a movie that really does nail this aspect. Equally the motion capture performance of Andy Serkis (Caesar) and Toby Kebbell (Koba) was astonishing. There were real emotions being expressed that went beyond Rupert Wyatt's 2011 Plant of the Apes reboot. Caesar in particular was a character caught between the human world and the new Ape world order; he experienced good and bad on both sides of the evolutional ladder. The chief Ape was going through dark times and Serkis nailed it with a surprisingly expressive performance and commanding voice work. I'm going to say it right here right now, Andy Serkis is more freaking deserving of an Oscar than a zillion pretty boy actors, dude knows his job y'all.

Okay out of room, tying this one up and posting it to editing. I had good times with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and am now more than excited to catch the next movie in the series, plenty of material has been built up for a sequel. Dawn was fast paced, had one awesome battle scene, and hit the dramatic chomps like a Shakespearian drama. There's not a lot else I want in a movie to be honest, well okay a haunted house, Director Matt Reeves hit the requirements and then some. Full recommendation, this is a summer blockbuster that delivers the goods rather than being simple minded explosions. Think we are looking at the dawn of a new franchise, catch the movie people, I don't want to be explaining the backstory when we get the next movie in the series.