Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (July 2014)

Official Australian release date: 10/7/14. Viewed: 16/7/14.

Director: Matt Reeves

Actors: Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: M

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ does a great job of continuing the story from ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, without picking up directly where it ended or doing any gimmicky flashbacks. The graphic of how the simian virus spread was quite original and the opening shot of Caesar – and indeed the first 15min or so – does a great job of showing so much, without needing any talking.

The setting is still Muir Woods in San Francisco, but a lot has changed, with the apes now living peacefully and successfully in the forest and the humans a desperate mess in the city. I was amazed by how quickly I was cheering for the apes and, if not despising, then at least not caring for the humans at all! Caesar (Serkis), Koba (Kebbell), Blue Eyes (Thurston) & Maurice (Konoval) are the main stars here, with Dreyfus (Oldman), Malcolm (Clarke) & Ellie (Russell) merely making up the numbers. It’s great to have Serkis back as Caesar, the “king of the Apes”, with such nuanced and believable body language and facial expressions. Hard to believe he has gone from obscurity to the world’s greatest motion-capture actor in just over 10 years! He’s now responsible for three of the biggest characters of all time – Caesar, King Kong & Gollum – and he’ll be in ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ next year!

So much happens in this film – it’s tense and dramatic in parts, then a full blown war in others and a political tug-of-war in others, and often times both “sides” are trying hard to do right, but something prevents that. It’s definitely not boring and flies along, looking great, and importantly too – sounding great, with a nice score underneath and throughout.

Seeing as this is the seventh film in the franchise (no one counts Burton’s 2001 remake, right?), it definitely leaves you wondering and anticipating what will happen in the third of the “prequel trilogy” and see how they link them to the original 60s/70s films. It will also be amazing if they have the third prequel made by 2016, considering how much CGI & motion-capture detail they will need for the epic ‘conclusion’…

Overall: Talking-monkey-riding-a-horse-shooting-a-gun: sounds ridiculous & stupid, but once you see how it fits into this film, you’ll see how cool and relevant it is!

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.