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Cloverfield director Matt Reeves takes the helm of the sequel to surprise hit of 2011 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. I’ve never watched Reeves’ first feature film but would be looking to give it a chance now on the strength of this outing. Conversely, why he felt the need to make Let Me In when Let The Right One In was peerless is beyond me.
Set ten years after Rise in San Francisco, Dawn sets the scene effectively with a montage of disturbing and authentic-looking media footage portraying the decay of humanity thanks to a lethal outbreak of flu.
It’s a brave move to then focus so much film-time on the apes for the next portion of the film. It is not a chore in the slightest, the motion capture of all the apes fully immerses you in their much-evolved life. How they interact, the social hierarchies, the characteristics of the principal ape characters are all so well realised that suspension of disbelief is not required. You are watching a burgeoning nation develop before your very eyes.
The humans on the other hand are struggling to adapt in a world without energy. They are feeling cut off from the rest of the world without their interwebs and tellingbones. Leader of the San Franciscan Punks, Malcolm (Jason Clarke, Zero Dark Thirty) identifies a disused dam that could produce hydro-electricity. Guess which colony of furry creatures are nearby and the hi-jinx that follows?
That last sentence may have suggested this film becomes predictable fare, but far from it. You have a sense that the faeces is going to penetrate the wind turbine but it doesn’t pan out like you think it will. Writers Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver (both co-wrote Rise), and Mark Bomback (The Wolverine) create a varied palette of characters of different allegiances and beliefs, although you could possibly argue that the characterisations of main apes such as Caesar and Koba are much more rounded than the comparatively one-dimensional human characters of the sceptic Carver or the militaristic Dreyfus. But the apes are the undeniable stars of this film so that makes it acceptable.
Caesar (Andy Serkis, precious) and Koba (Toby Kebbell) make this film without a shadow of a doubt. They have a very complex relationship that gets more complex as the film goes on. It’s a close call as to who is the most effective: Caesar’s primal assertiveness and pacifist leanings or Koba’s loyalty laced with ambition and a barnstorming comic routine that is one of the most memorable scenes of any movie I have seen in recent times.
It is not often that you see a scene in a trailer and never tire of it, even when that trailer is replayed ad infinitum on your boob tube. It was a scene that made me think “I really need to watch this film ASAP.”
There are many like it that maintains the high standard right to its monumental conclusion. Some have criticised how the apes start talking in a very stunted way and how it drains the film of pacing, dragging on a bit. I disagree, it’s very well done, a further demonstration of the aforesaid evolution of the ape species. You can bet your ha’penny that they’ll be speaking a lot better in the next one as they evolve further.
From the title alone, I thought Rise was going to be shockingly bad. And NOT so bad it’s good. It’s just a bad name isn’t it? Dawn isn’t a big improvement nomenclature-wise but it ups the stakes making a smooth transition from sci-fi to action-packed post-apocalyptic epic with ease. It will easily hold it’s own in my end-of-year top ten.
Go see it while you can, you’ll thank me a bunch (of bananas).