Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review: A+

I don’t really do grades on reviews, but in coming up with a title for the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review it is necessary.  The movie is not what I expected and my expectations were very high, but after thinking about it Dawn of the Planet of the Apes exceeded them on every level.  In the end, the movie has as much, if not more in common with combat/war movies than the science fiction that you might expect from the title.

One reason for that is the superb use of CGI.  The motion capture used in the movie is amazing.  I didn’t know if I was watching real apes on screen or actors in motion capture suits.  It really doesn’t matter does it?  As long as the story and actors combine to make the CGI work with the story I’m OK with it.    Too much average CGI doesn’t make up for a bad story.

You don’t see or enjoy a movie for its special effects though.  Granted Avatar may be the exception to that statement, but even with that movie, the effects were the movie because the story by most measuring tools was flat.  Once you get past the effects Avatar was pedestrian and quite boring.

The story in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is simple too.   It’s ten years after the last movie and a massive pandemic has killed most of humanity.  A large pack of apes live in the mountains near San Francisco happy as can be until a group of humans stumble across them.

From here it goes into a story that could be told by humans in conflict, not necessarily apes.  Do you trust them?  What about those that you know you can’t trust, be them human or ape?  During the movie, when it’s happening you find yourself agreeing with everything that the characters do.  However, when certain things happen you think but if they didn’t do that, they this would not have occurred.

Days later I’m still thinking about the movie.  The story is so human and relatable, which is a bit ironic because the apes are onscreen more than the humans.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is different than your typical summer movie because it is not upbeat at all.  It’s dark, much of it is rainy and there is a lot of emotion.  In a way Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is akin to The Dark Knight.  Once the series is seen in totality it could be referred to as the Empire Strikes Back of it.

There is lots of action and combat scenes with apes.  At the showing that I attended there were a couple children who were 7 or 8.  That age is far too young for this film.  The violence isn’t too bad, except for one scene where the militant ape kills two humans.  But even that scene works in context with the personality of that ape, it wasn’t gratuitous.  It demonstrated how outside of the norm (for apes) that he was and what he was willing to do.

Even the ending works in a way that you don’t expect.  You knew that one thing would happen, but what happens after that propels the franchise in an entirely different direction.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a well crafted film that shows audiences how powerful motion capture and CGI can be.  The human interaction with the technical aspects, combined with a story that makes you think and care is rare, especially for a science fiction movie.