Review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) by Anna B — 28 Feb 2015

This feels like two movies to me: one half, a thoughtful meditation on interpersonal conflict mixed with the twin needs for power and safety. The other, a well executed but entirely generic and underwhelming action movie.

I really can't understand what went wrong. For the first half, this is one of the most thought provoking movies I've ever seen. And then, at the exact point where the movie should have kicked it up into high gear and become the stuff of legends, it instead undoes a fantastic twist and goes out in what it must have assumed was a bang, but was more a low chortle.