Get The Skinny on ‘Dawn of The Planet of The Apes’!
After seeing Dawn of The Planet of The Apes, I thought i would sit down and share my perspective on the film Check it out below and share your thoughts after the JUMP!
The themes in those classics were much more powerful than the themes in this movie. Even though this movie was perfectly executed, great CGI Andy Serkis doing what he does best and a nice premise it failed to elicit any real care on my part. The movie starts out fine, there is a nice exposition piece that fills in the gap from where the Apes first revolted to today. It did so with the now typical news story montage but it was a bit engaging. A simian virus wipes out most of the human race and then those lovely humans wiped out the survivors.
The major flaw that made this film plod along was the establishing of relationships. Caesar and his son, Maurice and Caesar, Caesar and Koba, Koba and Ceaser’s son, There is this entire unnecessary beginning of the film that does nothing but explain who likes who who does not like who, and much of that could have been edited or condensed.
Then when the humans are introduced we go through the same thing with most of them, then we build relationships with the apes with this small band of humans. It all takes entirely too long. I blame this on the dumbing down of things for audiences. Film Makers pander to the lowest denominator who will say gee that movie sucked they never said why Koba and Caesar were friends. They never showed why Maurice liked the human kid. To these people I say, don’t pander, lift people up to a level that makes them think.
There were some things in the film that were intended to make you think. Are apes better than humans? Humans in this film still, after at least ten years, and the destruction of modern civilization, think of apes as animals.
The same is true of some apes, they think of humans as animals. The crux is both groups, act naturally; and of course, act like animals. There are parallells in characters from both species. Intentional parallels in these two families, the quest for power in both species, one quests for electrical power. The other quests for the power of leadership.
Amazing how still after all those years, humans still have not learned anything and still look to take or conquer.
There is also a thin theme of war in general. Inevitable. This has to stop right now.
spoiler:
The heroes do not kill. Ya got that hollywood? heroes DONT kill. It was cute to have Caesar say “Koba not ape” so that you get around the Apes first law. Real cute, but very transparent. and if the same thing happened in the original I forgot, so I take that back if that was what happened but, really Hollywood, It is not OK.
The overall movie was too long and slumped along trying to explain every detail as if we were reading a novel. Everything else, would have worked if not for that. The scenes that were meant to elicit emotion? Failed miserably. Apes crying to tell you, hey you are supposed to get choked up and cry here too, was a poor choice of emotional motivator. A technically sound movie that suffered from too many other things getting in the way. I saw this in 2D and it may have been fun to see in 3D but 2D sufficed. Watch the originals instead, and maybe learn a little something about humanity.
