Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

2014 sequel

Rating: 16/20

Plot: After a monkey-flu pandemic has destroyed much of the earth's human population, survivors huddled in San Francisco make a trip to try to get a damn dam operational so that they can have power. Unfortunately, that dam is located near the rudimentary society that some intelligent apes have set up. They clash.

Here's a confession that I probably shouldn't make because all two-and-a-half of my readers will not be able to take me seriously anymore as a movie blogger. I popped this in and planned to halfway watch it while writing a blog entry or two. I almost never do that, but I figured this movie could only improve with a more lackadaisical viewing. I didn't like the first movie--Rise of the Planet of the Apes--at all, but I was interested in the narrative and wanted to see how they continued the story here. Anyway, I felt the need to come clean.

It actually didn't take me very long to reconsider, put the laptop aside, and give this my full attention. I was kind of blown away by it, and that doesn't often happen with things that are created to be summertime popcorn flicks. It happened early with a shot of Caesar's eyes and a powerful film score. Michael Giancchino is the guy who did the score, and it's about perfect. It's foreboding. It crunches. It stirs. It buzzes. It's exciting. It's dark. That's true for the entire movie, but this first scene? I was hooked immediately.

Of course, I was almost immediately reminded of why I didn't care for the first movie very much even though I did like the story. There's an opening scene in the forest with the apes, more upright this movie, and a bunch of fake deer. Oh, and a fake bear. It just looks dumb. However, it seems to me that the special effects, especially after that rough start, are better in this than they were in the Franco movie. The expressions feel more appropriate, too. Sure, the monkey talk gets a little tiresome at times, but the motion-capture stuff really works here. And I can't believe how well it works in some scenes, especially whenever there's a shot of an ape riding a horse. I'm not sure I've seen a CGI creation come to life as well as some of these primates since Jar Jar Binks. That's especially true with Caesar. I've poked fun at Andy Serkis's work before, or at least with the amount of praise the guy gets for hunching over and making faces. Here, Caesar is such a sympathetic character. The director really digs into this character's head, and it's not like we've got voiceover narration or internal dialogue or any trickery. It's through the narrative and the work that Serkis does. The ape commands this respect, probably because the other apes are reminded of Vin Diesel whenever Caesar talks about home and family. Kudos on creating a fantastic character. The villain in this is menacing, Caesar's son is conflicted, the main human played by Jason Clarke is likable, and Gary Oldman--in a role that seems smaller than what you'd expect--is electrifying. But it's really Caesar who drives this movie.

Is there another actor who can holler a speech through a megaphone better than Gary Oldman, by the way? I don't think there is.

The storytelling in this is just as good as the first movie, but the visuals are much better. I've already mentioned that the non-human characters feel more real. The shots of those characters against wonderfully-textured backgrounds also are great. The visuals give this a narrative drive. There's power with the way these characters are shot. No, I'm not convinced that ten years is going to make San Francisco that green, but how great is the world building there? The monkey's home, the shots in the woods, and the sadly-neglected Golden Gate Bridge. I like how they've got that landmark as an important fixture in both of these movies. That's this series' Statue of Liberty, I guess. There's also a great shot of a 76 gas station with Robbie Robertson singing "Take a load off, Annie" from "The Weight" that is really cool. This movie just looked so good. Not flawless, and there are scenes where you see through the special effects a little, but it looks good, the kind of thing where you know some care went into the set design and shot set-ups. The most impressive scene might be when the main human character takes off on a dangerous mission to get some medical supplies. There's this great extended shot with stuff busting through walls as Malcolm maneuvers through hallways and attempts to go down a staircase, a shot ending with the menacing image of an ape with a machine gun in the background. Perfect action movie making.

I can think of a lot of examples of movies that I liked a lot that had sequels that were terrible. [Note: A future list maybe?] I can't think of another example of a movie I hated that had a sequel I thought was so much better. It makes me wonder if I was just wrong about the first movie.

Oh, one more thing--I liked the visual bookends this movie had, too. Very nice.