Dawn of The Plant of The Apes Review

Any Which Way You Can

Released : July 17 2014

Certificate : 12A

Director : Matt Reeves

Cast : Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Plot : The film is set 10 winters (ape talk for 10 years) after Caesar led his fellow apes into the forest. In which time the human race have all but been wiped out by the ALZ-113 virus, and Caesar and his fellow apes have built a community in the forest. But the apes peaceful life is threatened when a colony of surviving humans arrive.

The prequel that rebooted the franchise, with surprisingly impressive results, left a lot of anticipation and pressure for the sequel. And despite the huge box office successes of the ‘rise’ (taking more at the box office than the other main prequel of that year, which was X-Men: First Class) , the only person who stayed to take part in this sequel is Andy Serkis, who is fast becoming the Lon Chaney of the growing animated cinema world. Andy was even allowed to use his monster voice much more in this film, as Caesar’s vocabulary and enunciation has dramatically improved in the ten winters since the first film. But luckily this version of the franchise still remains the only one in which apes don’t take to speaking in British (or American) accents.

In these ten winters Caesar as been able to build a peaceful and functional community of apes which comes with its own education system, run by the wise ‘Yoda’ like Orangutan featured in the first film. The human race has not been seen by the apes in two winters, until a party of humans scouting for a power source in the woods stumbles across two playful teenage apes. Drama escalates from this point rapidly.

The film does not waste any time demonstrating the power of the apes, with an opening sequence of mass hunting, because of this seeing the apes in action is not as surprising as in the ‘rise’ but instead shows how the apes function as a family and as a community. This is short lived, but satisfying to see the apes way of life in their tree house village. But as the story progresses as the apes inevitable become embroiled in conflict with humans, these battles are much more dramatic and brutal than the small skirmish featured in the previous film on the Golden Gate Bridge. These fight scenes were made more interesting and added a certain degree of depth as it shows the varying levels of ‘humanity’ between the different apes, and likewise with the humans. But for some who have a soft spot for the apes, these prolonged sequences of violence might be too much, as in the ‘rise’ only one or two apes are injured in the making of the movie. But due to the story having ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’ on both sides, its was refreshing and enjoyable to not be rooting for either side, an effect that the ‘rise’ did not posses, nor do many blockbusters we see today. This allowed you to be absorbed in the ape/human character drama and the surprisingly impressive large scale special effects, again this version of the franchise being the most credible in its depiction of the ape movements, made possible through modern special effect.

The change in director for this sequel from Rupert Wyatt (for the ‘rise’) to Matt Reeves was a change for the better, but Wyatt had done a good job in showing Caesar grow into the ape leader he is today, but Reeves was able to skilfully take the story into the next darker chapter. Reeves showed the rapid decent into war between the two species seem enthralling, brutal and believable, a skill of blending these emotions that he employed in Cloverfield. Reeves was effectively able to present the multiply large set pieces, most notable of which are the opening hunting sequences and the battles of the apes against humans, but the previous film was more effective in its character drama between Caesar and the human hero (in this film was played by Jason Clarke instead of James Franco). When viewed in this senses the ‘dawn’ could been seen as a typical sequel, more action, bigger set and bigger budget, without capturing the original magic. The ‘dawn’ does tick 3 out 4 of those boxes and although Reeves might not have been able to capture the same level of impressive human/ape bonding as Wyatt was, he was able to submerge you into the wars aura and different layers without turning the film into an over the top repulsive violent sequel, crafting a chaotic atmosphere and not presenting an obvious species to morally side with.

Andy Serkis gives a performance which resembles a believable super smart ape such as in the first film, but unlike the first film Serkis employs his ape voice more frequently, and it sounded like what one might have guessed an ape would sound like if it could talk . But due to Caesar having more lines, the shock factor of him talking does not create the same jaw dropping effect as in the original. Some might be inclined to say that the quantity of apes speaking English is too much, making the film less liable. Keri Russell’s ape acting on the other hand are up for criticism, as the bounds of believability or more importantly plausibility of Kobas coordination is dubious. As in one scene he is seen riding a horse whilst wielding two full automatic machine guns, so anyone who was expecting fight sequences out of Avatar, with the spear being mightier than the gun will be disappointed. This level of skill from Koba is slightly over the top, it stands out as being a falter in a film full of believable ape actions. The power of modern special effects has enabled this reboot of the franchise to make the apes look more real than ever, and to see a monkey firing two machine guns whilst on a horse is a throw back to unrealistic origins of the series with men wearing ape masks. So Kobas acting is slightly laughable.

But if you are restrained enough to let that very minor fault slide and stomach the apes using guns and getting hurt, than there is no reason why you can’t enjoy this film just as much as the previous one. This sequel has turned up the heat very well, as it moves the story into the darker days of war. Its more spectacular, dark and theatrical than its predecessor but in the best possible way, with an ending that can be neatly picked up for the next chapter in this franchise reboot. This is turning into the best series reboot since Christopher Nolan’s Batman series.

Verdict : If Rise of The Planet of The Apes was Batman Begins, then that makes this The Dark Knight. A brilliant sequel that is just as good as the original.

Verdict : 4/5

Quote : “War has begun”