Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes from 2011. The film starts 10 years after the first movie, the ALZ-113 Simian Flu virus has spread quickly, decimating the human race and there are small pockets of survivors.
Meanwhile, the ape colony has expanded and they’ve built themselves a pretty awesome tree fort in the Muir Woods. The apes are lead by super mutant Ceasar (Andy Serkis) along with wife Cornelia (Judy Greer, aka Trixie from Arrested Development!), orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval) and the shady Koba (Toby Kebbell) who we recognise from first movie. They’ve grown up and increased intelligence, Ceasar has an adolescent son called Blue Eyes, and in the first few scenes we see Cornelia give birth to another baby, leaving her very sick.
They come across a group of humans who are looking for the nearby dam, which they wish to convert into a power source for their growing survivor colony in San Francisco. One of the humans, Carver (Kirk Acevedo), shoots an ape creating some unrest between the humans and apes, but the rest of the team are able to smooth it over with Ceasar.
The humans go back to their camp and team leader Malcolm (Jason Clarke) agrees with colony leader Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) to allow them three days to go back to work on the dam. Things seem to be going well, the humans are able to cure Cornelia and the power gets put back on. However, the general lack of trust between some of the apes and the humans is too much. Koba, who from the first movie we know is a bit of a loose canon and has a very good reason to hate humans, double crosses Ceasar, which ultimately leads to the apes attacking the humans.
The apes look amazing, and though it’s hard to tell what is the actor and what is the CGI you have to commend Andy Serkis on his acting with Ceasar, his character is captivating and you never think about Gollum once! Ceasar is a firm but compassionate leader of the group, reiterating the line that apes do not kill. However at the end he realizes that actions of the other apes have led to outright war and his resolution about his fate as a war leader is very moving.
The baby ape gives some super cute moments throughout the movie, but remains unnamed, maybe he is Cornelius? But I’m guess we’ll have to keep guessing until the next movie.
None of the humans from the first film are in this movie, but that makes sense, we do see Ceasar talk about Will Rodman (James Franco) at one point but that’s it. The end of the human race as we know it is brushed over so quickly, but we learn a little bit about each of the humans and what they lost. There’s one particularly moving moment of Oldman staring at a battered old iPad at photos of his children, first he’s smiling and then he breaks down crying.
Gary Oldman is great and Clarke along with on screen wife and son Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee put in fine performances, but their role is very much secondary to the apes.
The shots of overgrown San Francisco are stunning and so well thought out. The attention to detail with the sound is so thorough and meticulous, they’ve really used the surround sound so well that at times you feel like you could be in the woods with the apes. However I would say 3D is rather redundant and doesn’t really add much to the cinema experience.
A thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster which will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end. I’m already impatiently waiting for the next one!
Alice Hubley
Genre:
Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Distributor:
20th Century Fox Film Co. Ltd
Rating: 12A
Running Time:130 Minutes
UK Release Date:
18th July 2014
Directed by:
Matt Reeves
Cast:
Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Judy Greer, Jason Clarke
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