Friday, 18 July 2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) Movie Review


Director: Matt Reeves
Writers: Rick Jaffa, Mark Bomback, Amanda Silver
Starring: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Toby Kebbell


Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the personally long awaited sequel to the second attempt at a reboot of the famous movie. This movie exceeds my expectations like a dwarf slam-dunking.

The movie carries on years after the ending of ‘Rise’ meaning that much of the human race has been utterly wiped out. The apes have also become far more advanced and have developed their own society. The humans need power from a dam nested deep within the apes’ territory.

I really enjoyed Koba in this movie. There are a few great scenes where he acts like some sort of show-chimp, fooling some humans. In the last movie, it never seemed to me like he would ever actually betray Caesar. The great personalities from Rise come back. My favourite is Maurice because he is an orang-utan and orang-utans are amazing. I also really enjoyed the character arc of Caesar’s first son, ‘Blue Eyes’. While he is physically developed enough to fight a war, he seems pretty naïve in his decisions. He really does improve by the end of the movie and that was pretty satisfying. The battles in the movie also offer some of the best desktop wallpapers for a long time. For instance, Koba on a horse with a heavy machine gun in either hand with fire blazing in the background. Fantastic

I feel like it is going to become a staple in this version of the apes series that the humans have to be about as interesting as ready salted crisps. I watched the movie yesterday but I am only able to remember the name of the main human. My only other problem with the movie is that there was very little point for Caesar having a wife (If apes have wives now). Other than explaining Blue Eyes’ existence, she is pretty much a vegetable. Perhaps Caesar’s affection for her shows how emotionally advanced the apes are compared to the real life chimpanzees who I am sure do not have wives. Honestly most of the female apes would just want a piece of Caesar and he wouldn’t really mind.

I hugely enjoyed this movie. The simian characters are thoroughly entertaining to watch develop and the conflict looks absolutely amazing with the trademark Andy Serkis quality of CGI. I only have some very minor complaints with this movie and I can easily recommend it. It is undoubtedly the best film I have seen this year… so far.


Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!

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