While I can’t say that 2011 was one of the best movie years
in recent memory, I will say that it definitely had its fair share of surprisingly
good films, like ‘The Muppets’ and ‘Fast Five’. But perhaps the biggest
surprise of 2011 was ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, a reboot of the ‘Planet
of the Apes’ franchise most famous for the original 1968 film of the same name
starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall and perhaps most infamous for
director Tim Burton’s critically maligned 2001 remake, which resulted in 20th
Century Fox abandoning their plans for a sequel, resulting in this new film
being made. I’m not sure how many of us were actually looking forward to it,
but in the end the film turned out to be pretty darn good for a few reasons.
Not only was the film well-written, giving us a group of characters that we
really cared about, but it also featured a phenomenal, Oscar-worthy performance
by Andy Serkis in the lead role of the genetically-enhanced ape Caesar. This
year, Caesar returns in ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ once again played by
Serkis. This time, however, there are a lot of changes in the cast and crew.
Matt Reeves (‘Cloverfield’) takes over for Rupert Wyatt as director and a new
ensemble cast takes over in a film that takes place many years after the events
of ‘Rise’. But in the end, ‘Dawn’ manages to be one of the rare sequels that is
superior to its predecessor as it is just as well-written, well-acted, and
impactful as the film that came before it and quite frankly does those things
even better.
At the end of ‘Rise’, the ALZ-113 virus, developed by the
biotech company Gen-Sys, began to spread across the world after an airline
pilot became infected with it after coming into contact with a Gen-Sys employee
that was the first human to truly become exposed to it. As this film begins, it
is now 10 years later and the virus (AKA the ‘Simian Flu’) has spread all over
the world eliminating most of the human population. While all of this is going
on a community of apes, led by Caesar (Andy Serkis), have made a living in the
Muir Woods but their peaceful home is soon invaded by a group of humans who are
among those who survived the virus and are currently living in a safe-haven in nearby
San Francisco. In order to keep the community’s power running as it is soon set
to run out in a few weeks, its co-founder, Malcolm (Jason Clarke), leads a
small group into the forest to try and find a dam that could provide them the
power they need. But the only problem is that it’s located right near where the
apes have set up their home, resulting in them having to go through it in order
to reach the dam. Malcolm and his group do initially manage to gain the apes’
trust, but soon this peaceful truce comes to a standstill when one of Caesar’s ‘allies’
starts a war against the humans, who themselves have been preparing for war in
fear of an attack by the apes.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ effectively ups the scale
and scope of the previous film, as you would normally expect sequels to do. But
just like the previous film, the writing is the film’s greatest strength
because it gives us characters that we really care about. For the first fifteen
minutes or so of the film, the focus is entirely set on Caesar and the apes and
because of this we are allowed to become fully immersed in the world of the
apes and become attached to them. The visual effects for the apes are even
better than they were in the previous film and will completely make you forget
that these apes are just computer generated creatures pretty much as soon as
the film begins. But of course, we do become invested in the human characters
as well, specifically Malcolm, his wife Ellie (Keri Russell), and their son
Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who take over for the main characters of the
previous film, who by this point have been dead for years being that they were
at ‘ground zero’ when the Simian Flu first hit. In this film, we get to see how
both sides, though different in many ways and generally mistrusting of each
other for obvious reasons (the humans blame the apes for the virus (even though
it actually isn’t their fault being that it was developed by Gen-Sys) and the
apes are fearing about what the humans would do to them given the mistreatment
that some of them were given back before the virus first spread), are basically
striving for the same thing; they’re both just trying to survive in this
post-virus world.
Ever since ‘The Two Towers’ was released, everyone has been
asking the following question and after seeing this film, I do feel that I have
to bring it up again here; why hasn’t Andy Serkis won an Oscar yet? Once again,
he is phenomenal in this and in my opinion, this is the best role of his
career; yes, I think he’s even better in these movies than he was in ‘Lord of
the Rings’, one of the reasons being that if you really think about it, Caesar
is a little more layered of a character than Gollum was. In fact, I think this
is the film where Serkis gives his best overall performance to date. A key
scene near the end of the film involving Caesar and his son Blue Eyes actually
made me kind of emotional and that’s a testament to how truly great of an actor
Andy Serkis is. I also have to give both of these recent ‘Apes’ films a lot of
credit for getting a really good cast of human characters that aren’t
necessarily a group of ‘A-list’ actors. I mean, of this cast, the one that most
audiences would recognize would probably be Gary Oldman (who is of course
excellent in this in a role that is actually much more complex than you might
expect) but overall everyone does a very good job in this. Jason Clarke (who’s
definitely one of the most underrated actors working today) comes off as very
natural and likable in his role as does Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Clarke and Serkis in particular work off each other really well here, more so
than Franco and Serkis in ‘Rise’.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the rare sequels
that actually manages to outshine its predecessor, which was also just as great
for similar reasons. The direction by Matt Reeves is fantastic, as is the
writing that allows us to sympathize with the key protagonists from both of the
‘sides’ in this movie; the humans and the apes. And after the film’s opening
sequence, we are already invested in the characters and are fully immersed in
their world. These two groups are both just trying to survive and in the post-‘Simian
Flu’ world that they live in, that doesn’t really come so easily. Of course,
Andy Serkis steals the show (seriously Academy, give this man an Oscar because
he’s been long overdue for one) but is backed up by a terrific cast. All in
all, ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the best summer blockbusters of
this year and also one of the best sequels in recent memory because it does
what good sequels do; expand on the universe as well as the overall scale and
scope while also maintaining the great writing from the previous film. I know
that some people are going to try and compare this film with a certain summer
blockbuster that came out a few weeks ago (which I won’t name here but you might
already know what film I’m talking about) given the very negative critical
reaction towards that film but I’m not going to be one of those people seeing
how I was one of those who did like the film and I’m also not one who compares
films that often. But for the record, yes I will agree that ‘Dawn’ is the
better film.
Rating: 5/5!
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