Review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) by Ducknation — 28 Jul 2014

"We've been through hell together! We spent four years, FOUR YEARS fighting that virus, and then another four fighting each other! It was chaos!... But you all know what we're up against! And I want you to know, it's not just about power! It's about giving us the hope to rebuild, to reclaim the world we lost!".

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is absolutely phenomenal and one of the best summer blockbuster movies in recent years. I actually watched the movie during its initial release window but decided not to write a review for it as I was sick at the time so I never got around to it but seeing that some time has past now and I still find myself wanting to write a review for it so here I am. Well to start this movie was my most anticipated movie of the whole year over other films like Captain America 2, X-Men DOFP, Godzilla, and a few others, and I would have to say the film most definitely delivered on all my expectations. I wasn't a big fan of Matt Reeves previous films so I was a bit hesitant when I learned that he was going to be the director of this film that being said though I didn't really know that Rupert Wyatt the director of "Rise of the Plant of the Apes" was virtually a unknown director at the time when he did that film so I should have given Reeves more of a chance.

The film picks up 10 years after the film installment and the opens up with the apes hunting for food and right from the beginning the film blows you away with its amazing visuals which I was absolutely thrilled about because Weta Digital really dropped the ball with the visuals in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and its good to see them redeem themselves. It's been 2 years since the apes and humans had any contact with each other and Caesar isn't even sure if they are alive anymore which you can see makes him sad. Leading up to the events in this film the humans spent four years fighting the virus then the next four years fighting each other but it seems after all that the few remaining survivors live in peace in the ruins of San Francisco for the past two years. With fuel running low and the fear of returning back to darkness the main humans which consist of Gary Oldman as Dreyfus the leader, Jason Clarke as Malcolm a scientist, and Keri Russell as Ellie his girlfriend.

After a brief encounter with two young apes in the woods where one of them ends up getting shot in the arm we see Caesar and a huge group of apes march on San Francisco to show power but only to say that humans must stay in the cities and the apes will stay in the forest, this happens to one of the more iconic parts of the movie as it was so freaking awesome to see the apes ride on horse back. Malcolm convinces Dreyfus to give him three days to go talk to the apes to see if they cant just gain access to the hydro dam in the forest so they can fix it so they can have electricity all over the city and they wont have any need to enter the forest. Caesar agrees which leads to one of the fellow apes starting to question his actions. From here we see things escalate in both the human and ape groups which ends up leading to a all out war between the two.

While I was watching the film I would see something happen and I would think to myself and be like okay so this is going to happen but to my surprise it didn't and that happened to me a couple time throughout the movie which I loved because few movies can do that consistently and prove me wrong each time. I was never really a fan of Jason Clarke and I wasn't sure how I was going to like him being in this film seeing that he was going to be a major part of it but he actually did a solid performance which I was surprised about it also actually made me think that he wont be all that bad in Terminator: Genesis. Gary Oldman again was fantastic but of course that's nothing new, he has this one really emotional scene that ends up being one of the more memorable parts of the film. Toby Kebbell as Koba was great he was strong and fearful he also did a really good job for his first motion capture film but i'm sure Mr. Serkis had something to do with that.

Speaking of which lets get to Andy Serkis as the mighty ape Caesar honestly there really isn't anything to say other than we already know he wont win a Oscar for this which is just a absolute shame. His performance in this blows every other motion capture performance of his out of the water its really not even all that close id go as far and say that this is his best performance to date period. The motion capture for the apes was seriously stunning some of the apes like Caesar, Koba, and Maurice, look just as if you were looking at real apes, there are a couple parts where you get to see close ups of Caesar's eyes and you seriously can not tell that its CGI.

Overall I give it a 9.