Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Grading & Discussion

STOP! Stop, right there.

We're NOT going to do this.

 

Sure, sure. We're all classy people who don't want the thread to degenerate into primate puns. Why, that's a gibbon.

 

Seeing this Saturday, expect it to be a real howler.

 

Just got back from seeing it and I found it surprisingly engaging. The apes were well developed as characters and looked real. The 3D added nothing though. No end credit scene either.

The outcome also wasn't what I expected.

Spoiler: the outcome.

Somehow I thought that maybe the humans would be wiped out but that didn't happen. This left very little in the way of development as far as apes rising to prominence.

 

I liked the movie but not as much as the first. Which was a surprise at how good it was. I saw a double screening of both last night. Maybe that is the issue. Seeing Rise again, it really was a fresh story. While Dawn does not advance things much.

Where do they go from here? The original film is thousands of years in the future. Yet other than unintelligent humans nothing major needs to happen. Basically we will see standard Post Apocalyptic action but with Apes. Which was my opinion of the end. Probably I am in the minority but the Apes shooting machine guns was less interesting than their escape from San Francisco.

 

It does set up the conflict between humans and apes. Up to this point the apes have basically ignored humans, they even seem to doubt they're even still around until Charlie from Fringe gets a little too trigger happy. Now we have a bunch of scared humans, what's left of the military aware of super-intelligent and armed apes that tried to take over a colony and capture humans. The next logical step is the war where Earth needs up a nuked wasteland and humans are basically animals. They're taking it slow, showing us the steps that lead to the war and actually showing a story with actual characters instead of just having a bunch of action scenes of all out war between humans and apes.

 

NBC news did a fact v. fiction on this film Some of it is amusing especially the, 'no genitals part.'

NBC news

 

I don't think the goal should be to end up redoing the original film. We've already got the original film. This series is going in a very different, smart direction of its own. It could be heading toward the kind of world we saw in the original film, but it doesn't have to redo the same story. That would be kind of a letdown after these films have brought such originality and freshness to the concept.

 

Oh, I actually agree completely. If they try to lead up to the original film they are very limited creatively.

 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

My Grade: A-

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"Dawn" takes place 10 years after the events of the previous film, we're told via news footage over opening credits that the aerosolized Alzheimer's cure developed in the first film that turned out to have deadly contraindications to humans has spread across the world, infected, and killed off all but 1 out of every 500 people. In essence, society and everything about is gone and has fallen part and humanity is in scraps trying to survive in a new, hostile, world.

The apes in the woods outside San Francisco have fared better and thrived into pretty much a functioning civilization ruled over by Caesar, the medically/genetically enhanced ape from the previous film. Caesar operates as wise and kind leader who does not wish harm on either humans or apes but things start to go wrong one day when a group of humans has an encounter with a group of Caesar's "people" resulting in one getting shot at the hands of a human.

Caesar orders the humans to return to where they came from but the encounter sets off a series of events bringing the apes and humans to war.

The humans were walking through San Francisco's redwood forest in order to get to a hydroelectric damn in the hopes of repairing it and restore power to the city. The apes are now in the way.

The leader of the human camp wants to take a more aggressive approach to get to the damn but in the encounter with Caesar leader of the group, Michael(?) is convinced Caesar can be reasoned with. Eventually a tenuous deal is struck between the humans and apes but decenters on both sides, primarily the scarred ape from the previous film, lead to a battle between apes and humans.

Overall the film is a good, enjoyable, outing that's not quite as bogged down by the contrivances, call-backs, and, well "human stuff" from the previous film. We get a whole lot more from Caesar in this film and see that he truly does want something of a peace with the humans but his right hand man, the scarred ape who was held captive and tested on by humans in labs is far less trusting. On the other side humans seem mostly unaware of the level of intelligence the apes have achieved and what they are capable of, mostly dismissing them as pesky animals.

Andy Serkis turns in a phenomenal performance as the Mo-Cap subject for the movements and facial features of Caesar and he's probably the most likable and enjoyable character in the movie, the humans are mostly stock characters.

There's really few problems I have with this movie without getting too much into nitpicky details. Like how is electrical connectivity still possible when 10 years of tree growth, lack of maintenance and storm damage has likely disrupted power lines? How is the Golden Gate Bridge still standing and usable after going 10 years without maintenance and considering the damage it likely took over the course of the previous movie? JESUS CHRIST there's a lot of ammunition in the human enclave. I know they said it was a military base or something but, holy shit! The scarred ape seems quite adept at dual-wielding machine guns given his lack of training and experience with them. Usual gripes about the viability of gasoline in a post-apocalyptic setting. "The Walking Dead", currently about 2 years after the beginning of the end, is already in the realm of gasoline no longer being viable. After 10 years? Forget about it.

But the biggest problem of it all is what sets the whole movie off in the first place. The humans wanting to get electricity. Part of the opening news clip montage shows a satellite view of the earth (with the arcing plane paths) with the lights in the cities going out. So it's likely humanity has gone without a power grid for quite some time. So... why do we need electricity? One of the human characters says something about needing to operate radio equipment to hopefully connect with other people still alive out there but they hardly need an entire hydroelectric damn to do that when rigging up a generator powered by a bike could do it or, hell, use the gasoline that's apparently still good to power a generator.

In fact when power IS restored we see the humans partying and acting like everything is perfectly normal again.

It's a thin premise to really believe, at one point one of the human characters muses that apes will survive better since they don't need electricity for various things. I guess no one told this guy that humans haven't had electricity for basically all of our 40,000 year existence. I think Gary Oldman will survive without his iPad.

Still, very enjoyable movie and addition to this new series.

 

A+

My favorite thing about this and the last movie is the way the apes talk. It's not like Roddy McDowell and the Queen's English. It sounds like apes with accelerated speech centers talking. Excellent job.

And I rooted for the apes. In this version they deserve the world.

 

Well, keep in mind the original movies the apes were much more evolved, and the humans DE-evolved since they had lost the ability of speech.

 

Wow, absolutely incredible movie.
One of the things I loved the most about it is the fact that is not about the conflict between human and apes, but about conflicting ideologies in both species. It's not just apes good, humans bad or the other way around, there were good and bad in both groups. I was honestly expecting the big battle we see in the trailers to be the climax, so I was presently surprised when that actually happened about half way through, and the real climax was Ceasar/Koba and Malcolm/Dreyfus.
I loved the fact that we spent so much time with the Apes, and I really liked that they actually had them acting like apes, rather than humanizing them.
I thought all of the actors did good jobs, but Andy Serkis (Ceasar), and Toby Kebbell (Koba), and Jason Clarke (Malcolm) and Gary Oldman (Dreyfus) were especially great.
I really hope if we do get a third one, which seems pretty likely to me, that they keep it in a close enough time frame that we get the same cast.
Definitely gets an A+ for me.

 

I want to see this (I enjoyed the first one)' but I'm not paying extra to see it in 3D because it bothers my eyes. Unless a 2D version is released then I'll have to wait for video release.

 

Does your local theater not have a 2D version available? Mine certainly did. While I can see plenty in this movie that *might* look good in 3D, at the same time there's lots of these scenes where it's dark (as in night/low-light conditions in the movie) so I don't think the 3D would lend much to the experience and I've heard the 3D isn't well done.

 

A+. I thought Apes was great! The CGI work on them has become amazing and they completely carry the film. Even more impressive is how the movie relies on sign language and subtitles. It's a terrific way to help tell the story. Serkis's work continues to remain top-notch and I was so glad to see the character of Maurice back.

Also good, some of the motivations here (particularly Oldman's character) actually make sense.

 

thought it was great. the CGI really was fantastic. i would swear that in some of those close ups that real apes were used.

 

My local theatre usually does have a 2D showing, but not always and not yet for this film. Maybe within a week.

 

Ok, I'm ready to close the book on 2014. There's absolutely no way a better movie than this one can come out this year. This was incredible.

 

Wow. Just wow. Haven't been so engrossed in a film in years. The only downside I had was Gary Oldman. He irks me in everything he's in, but other than that I loved it. Best film of the year for me without a doubt. Favourite scene? The little one between Alexander and Maurice. Simple, yet effective.