Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the anticipated sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). Set ten years after the events of Rise, we catch up with Caesar who is now in charge of his own tribe and is trying to live a peaceful life away from the scraps of humanity that are left. Most of humanity has died due to the outbreak of Simian Flu and a small colony in San Francisco has to walk directly into Caesar’s patch in order to try to restore power to the city.
In a thankfully Franco-free film, Dawn is possibly one of the best movies released this year. It seems to have learned its lesson after Rise of the Planet of the Apes where the human aspect of the film was so bland and practically non-existent. Here, there is a perfect balance between both the human and ape sides of the story; there are no ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ – you can see both arguments and understand all sides of the conflict. The story and plot are well constructed, easy to understand and – most importantly – make sense.
There is an entire new cast here, something which would have made people a bit apprehensive but it proved to be a great move. Gary Oldman was excellent in his role as the leader of the San Francisco colony who struggles to accept the possibility of apes and humans living in peace. It’s unusual seeing Jason Clarke in a lead role but he took on the challenge well enough – he was a bit bland at some points but overall his performance was fine.
The only real issue with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was the apes themselves; the technology used to create them is certainly advanced but there are some points where they look almost like cartoons. The technology works best when there are close-ups of apes and you can take the opportunity to really look at them and notice their facial expressions which move in a natural way.
Overall, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a great summer film full of action and intelligence. Some of the violence can be quite shocking but it never seems unnecessary or over the top. However, two films in now and we still have not reached the stage where it truly is the planet of the apes. After seeing this it does feel like Rise of the Planet of the Apes was necessary to build Caesar’s character but it still feels like too much back story has been added – in order for the next film to work it will have to be sent another ten years after the events of this film.
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