A Review of "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

"Greetings humans, welcome to Ape Land. Deposit guns on ground, palm your poo, and prepare for war."

Happy Memorial Day. Yeeeeah, I had a busy weekend and a few things keeping me from keeping up with a timely schedule! Nevertheless, I aim to do two posts this week to close out talking about anthropomorphic apes, heh. We only have two movies left (currently, anyway) and then it's on to a summer full of different other kinds of reviews. Of which I'm not entirely sure yet.

Last week we reviewed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the 2011 reboot to the franchise that breathed new life into the story as far as I'm concerned. It became probably my second or third favorite, fighting Conquest for the silver prize behind the original 1968 movie. The rest kind of meander around the rear of the field, bumping into and tripping over each other. Next up is the sequel to Rise! This is 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and I just watched this one over the past week for the first time in order to review it. I must say, I think this series struck again. Maybe not for a home run, but definitely a base hit. Andy Serkis is back as the ape leader Caesar, and ten years have passed since the end of Rise. Let's slice into this smorgasbord of ape-tastic gourmet viewing--I have no idea what I'm saying anymore.

"Human, the dam is over there--"
"Hang on--HONEY, get a load of the ugly one! WOOF!" 

The movie opens up, like I said, ten years after the global pandemic of a deadly Simian Flu, where the worldwide human population is drastically reduced, with only about 1 in 500 genetically immune. This causes societal collapse among humans. The apes, all bestowed with genetically enhanced intelligence by the virus, establish a colony in the Muir Woods near San Francisco. The movie then cuts to, oddly enough, MONKEYS IN A JUNGLE! WIIIIILDLY unpredictable, I must say! We get to enjoy watching Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his tribe of advancing apes hunt and kill food for survival, namely deer and elk in this instance. That's pretty interesting to see. Plus his war paint is pretty gnarly to see.

A group of humans, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), unknowingly enter the apes' territory in search of a hydroelectric dam that would restore power to their community in San Francisco. Carver (Kirk Acevedo... badass name, lol), a member of Malcolm's group, injures a chimpanzee named Ash (Doc Shaw) in an unexpected confrontation. Malcolm manages to prevent further escalation, and Caesar, the apes' leader, orders the humans to leave. Prompted by Koba (Toby Kebbell), Caesar brings his army to the human community as a display of strength. In a cool scene, Caesar announces that, despite the apes not wanting war, they will fight the humans if forced; he demands the humans stay in their territory. Malcolm convinces community leader Dreyfus (Gary "Why the fuck am I here?" Oldman) to give him time to take a small team to the forest with the mission to reconcile with the apes and access the dam. Eventually, Caesar allows them to work on the generator on the condition that they surrender their guns. While working together, Malcolm, his wife Ellie (Keri Russell), and his son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) bond with the apes. The fragile relationship briefly falls apart when Carver is discovered to have kept a hidden gun and is thus forcibly sent away, but trust is restored when Ellie, a nurse, effectively treats Caesar's wife Cornelia's (Judy "I'm in Everything!" Greer) illness.

"Apes, go over strategy one more time."
"First we attack humans."
"--then?"
"We bite genitalia off."
"Good."

Right away the movie is starting to feel a little predictable. While it's not a bad movie so far, I was already figuring out kind of how the plot was going to go, as I'd seen this story play out in other movies before. A member of one tribe asking for permission to a resource or land unintentionally offends those who hold said resource or land. Still, the owners are good at heart so they offer the wanters a chance despite shaky trust. The actions of the wanters offend a young owner, who becomes radicalized in their quest to destroy the wanters, a chance at peace, and keep their way of life, much to the disagreement of other owners. Disney's Pocahantas comes to mind again, but only just.

Anywho, Dreyfus arms his community with the munitions at the Fort Point armory. Koba, who has a vendetta against humans for his mistreatment as a laboratory test subject (see?), discovers the armory and confronts Caesar, accusing him of loving humans more than apes (SEE?). Caesar beats Koba in response but refrains from killing him. In a wild scene that caught me off guard so much I had to watch it again, Koba later returns to the armory, pretends to get drunk, kills two guards, and secretly kills Carver after the humans succeed in repairing the generator. Koba takes advantage of their celebration to covertly set fire to the ape colony. Now he's becoming like Scar... Disney's The Lion King. I think this movie's story owes more to Disney than Planet of the Apes. Koba then shoots and seemingly kills Caesar, who falls into the underbrush and disappears for a bit. Koba frames the humans for Caesar's death and the fire to justify war. Taking command, he leads the ape army to San Francisco, where they plunder the armory and mount a full-scale assault on the humans. Despite taking heavy casualties, the apes breach the building and imprison the humans as Dreyfus flees underground. While refusing orders to kill unarmed humans, Ash cites Caesar's teachings, and Koba kills him. Koba has all apes loyal to Caesar imprisoned, including Caesar's lieutenants Maurice, Luca, and Rocket... yep, Scar. Definitely Scar. MUFASA MUFASA MUFASA! Lol anyway.

One thing that never dies in a Simian Flu pandemic,
Republicans and their love for guns.

In a surprise to no one, Malcolm's family find a severely wounded Caesar and transport him to his former home in San Francisco. After sneaking back into the settlement to find medical supplies, Malcolm encounters Blue Eyes, Caesar's son. Blue Eyes spares him before learning that his father is still alive and accompanies Malcolm to Caesar. There are two clues here that show us what could have been the fate of Will Rodman (James Franco) after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. When Caesar returns to his house, a sign can be seen with an "X" on the stoop by the door. Usually this means someone living there is infected, so it can be assumed he was one of the first to die in the plague. Also, Will's 1980s-ish Jeep is still parked in front of the house, covered in vines and vegetation, but it can clearly be seen when Caesar and friends first arrive to the house. It is assumed if Will had left his house, he most likely would have driven his vehicle. He most likely succumbed to the Simian Flu and died, much like many of the world's population. All started from a medicine he was working on. Tragic, indeed.

Anywho, after learning that Koba shot Caesar, Blue Eyes reconciles with his father; the trio return to the community and free every imprisoned human and ape. After escorting the apes into the tower, Malcolm finds Dreyfus, who reveals that his men made radio contact with a military base. Malcolm holds Dreyfus and his men at gunpoint in an effort to give Caesar time to retake command. Caesar confronts Koba at the top of the tower for an epic showdown upon epic showdowns; as they fight, Dreyfus kills himself when he detonates C-4 in order to destabilize the building in a failed attempt to kill the apes. Caesar defeats and kills Koba in similar fashion of Koba killing that dude in the helicopter in Rise, letting him fall to his death after asking for help. Justice = served. Also I have no doubt Gary Oldman wanted to sequel proof himself by demanding a death scene. No doubt in my mind whatsoever, lol.

What would make this 10x funnier is if Koba had
"I'm Walking on Sunshine" playing on earphones in
his ears while making this face.

Malcolm warns Caesar of the approaching human military. with Caesar stating; "Begun the Clone War has..."--nah just kidding, but he does echo Yoda by stating "War has already begun" because of Koba's violent reign. Believing that the humans will never forgive the apes for their attack, Caesar convinces Malcolm to leave with his family for safety before the fighting begins. He then addresses the apes, preparing for the upcoming war.

That is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Overall, I think it is a solid sequel. It has some balls here and there showing some violent gunplay at work. Like I said, the scene with Koba and the two guards caught me by surprise with its violence. I mean Koba straight-up merc'd those guys in cold blood. I did not expect that. Koba was seen more of a tragic good-guy and someone who could be Caesar's right-hand bodyguard and tough guy by the end of Rise, in my opinion, but Dawn I guess decided to use him as a tragic yet violently radicalized individual. His vendetta against humans, as we saw, is sort of justified, but not to the extent of violence. I also very much liked the apes' performance evolution being further depicted in this movie. At the end of Rise, some apes could communicate via sign language and only Caesar could speak. By the beginning of Dawn, some ten years after the events of Rise, Caesar was much more fluent in English and more apes could sign some very complex sentences. I couldn't wait to see how the progression would be further depicted in the next movie. Even Koba and Caesar's right-hand advisor Maurice (Karin Konoval) were more articulate and intelligent in this film. The way Koba screamed "CAESAR!" throughout the movie was haunting. Well done. In fact, I did some light reading on the trivia of the movie: In the film, the violent, hate-filled ape, Koba, is a bonobo (formerly known as a pygmy chimpanzee) while the pacifist, forgiving ape, Caeser, is a chimpanzee (formerly known as a common chimpanzee). In real-life, however, bonobos are the much less violent of the two chimp species and rarely fight, whereas common chimps are much more prone to attack one another. Hmm... ironic! I'll bet the screenwriters looked at that and went "Hmm, oh well! PLOT HOLE!"

All in all, I enjoyed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and I recommend it. It had action, suspense, not really a overblown plot, pretty straightforward PG-13 action romp if you're looking for some good popcorn entertainment. It's a solid enough sequel for sure. The reboot series so far has been impressing me. I'm ready to see the current "conclusion" of the series coming up next! I'll be out of town this upcoming weekend so I want to have it out prior to when I fly out Friday morning, hopefully I can stick to that.

Catch you all then! Only one movie to go!