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

Planet of the Apes is a film series that I personally regard as one of the most entertaining and thought provoking series' of all time. If you have not yet seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies, I implore you to buy, rent or borrow the films to understand what I mean. And when I say to do those things, I don't mean later. I mean now. Stop reading this passage and go begin your new, better life.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes takes place 10 years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The 'Simian Flu' exterminated a large portion of the human race, and the survivors are now close to running out of fuel. They devise a plan to get electricity running, but things go awry when they find that the apes never left. While the humans were dying off, the apes spent their time growing their home, teaching their young and generally becoming a fairly civilized city of apes. Now that both species know of the others' existence, tension is high in both groups.

I won't make many comparisons between this film and the rest in the series. I will limit myself to mentioning the fact that this is a loose remake of Battle for the Planet of the Apes, so many of the conflicts from that film are remade in this film. The other tidbit that I feel inclined to mention is the slight lack of allegorical content that made most of the other films so great. While there a few of these themes in the film, they aren't as prominent as the original series.

But moving on, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a superb action film. Having a cast of CGI apes in the stead of humans in ape costumes really make this film easier to immerse yourself into. The apes can do much more ape-like things this way, and simply look more realistic. Andy Serkis is probably the best mo-cap actor I can think of, and his presence in this film does not change my opinion in any way.

One of the biggest complaints I can think of for this film is actually a pretty minor one. In Rise, Caesar spoke a few times, and spoke quite clear towards the end of the film. However in this film, the first hour or so features no speaking apes. They all communicate through sign language, but many are still mute. This really isn't much of a problem, one could argue that only the offspring of the genetically altered apes would have the ability of speech and as such Caesar simply stays quite because of that. Then all of a sudden the apes slowly all begin to know how to speak. Even Caesar slowly learns how to speak better. I found it odd that if they knew how to speak they wouldn't focus more attention on teaching speech and speaking more often.

All of these were nitpicks of the negative things I found in the film. Overall, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was a step up from Rise and certainly entertaining. I am excited for the future of this series.

Rating: 9/10

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