Nobody thought that 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” would actually be pretty darn good. Despite a notable lack of charisma from its human performers and an unrefined tonal execution by director Rupert Wyatt, the movie’s central story about a super-smart chimp named Caesar losing faith in his human masters and rising to become an ape revolutionary, was surprisingly nuanced and engaging in a way that its pulpy source material didn’t initially suggest. Though light on the social satire originally in the forefront of the classic Apes series, ‘Rise’ was a delicate character study that argued for the artistic validity of animated motion capture performances, giving actor Andy Sirkis the opportunity to turn in a mo-cap tour-de-force.
This
summer’s sequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, directed by J.J. Abrams
protégé Matt Reeves, chronicles Caesar’s tumultuous reign as the leader of the
ape rebellion. After the world’s human population has been devastated by a
virus sprung from the same concoction that gave the primates their intelligence,
a small group of survivors trek into the woods to activate a local dam, hoping
to restore power to their near-vacant city. On the way, the group stumbles upon
an ape village, accidentally inciting a diplomatic scuffle when a clumsy human
nervously shoots one of their guards. Luckily for them, group leader Malcolm (played
by “Zero Dark Thirty” actor Jason Clarke) is able to calm the storm long enough
to allow the excavators to enter the ape’s territory while they work on the broken
dam.
Caesar’s
lingering hope for human civility allows for him to carry out the hesitant
truce, particularly as his ape queen becomes ill after childbirth and Malcolm’s
partner Ellie (Kerry Russell) has the medical background to aid in her
recovery. However, Caesar’s war general,
a spiteful chimp named Koba, still psychologically and physically scared by
human experimentation, reveals less trust in the union and begins to enact a
counter agenda of his own.
Like
the previous film, the strength of this feature is in its deep-digging
character work. Though some of the apes
are able to string together words to create broken sentences, the majority of
their actions and emotions are expressed physically through detailed computer
animation. Said animation and other special effects have been significantly
improved since the last installment, and the motion capture body-work by Andy
Sirkis and other members of the ape-cast are especially fluid and believable.
The
action is ramped for genre-fulfilling summer movie thrills but it is the quiet
moments between the storms that keep the audience invested in the plight of
both sides of the futuristic cold-war. In our current socio-political climate
it’s difficult to not draw parallels to America’s divided views on gun
violence, as well as global tensions between hostile nations and their ever-
intensifying saber-rattling. Of course the Apes series has always aimed to
discuss these sorts of ideas and Reeves’ sensitive direction allows for
intellectual discourse, just under the surface of the blockbuster’s bombast.
While some
of the characters are noticeably underwritten—particularly Kerry Russell, Gary
Oldman as a trigger-happy Donald Rumsfeld type,
and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jason Clarke’s teenage son—the emotional
foundation of this story is solid enough to keep you glued to every interaction
on the screen, particularly by the titular simians. Those grievances aside,
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is a substantial achievement that raises the
bar for genre filmmaking in 2014 by being intimate, epic and distinctly human at
the same time.
Grade: A-
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014
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