“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” paints a deadly picture of how the great human/simian war started. (Poster property of 20th Century FOX)
By: Jacob Elyachar, jakes-take.com
Warning! Spoilers are ahead!
In all honesty, the last movie I saw this year was Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier!
It conquered the Box Office as it earned over $710,000,000!
One movie that hopes to do it is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
The second prequel of the Planet of the Apes reboot takes place 10 years after Caesar’s epic escape from San Francisco. The human race has nearly been annihilated by the ALZ-113 virus and lives in a war-torn version of the city.
Meanwhile, Caesar (Andy Serkis) has built a community of 2,000 apes that include his son Blue-Eyes, his wife Cornelia and longtime friends Rocket, Maurice and the ruthless Koba. Up until now, the ape community lives in peace…until Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and his crew invade their land in hopes of finding a hydro-electric damn to turn the power back on to save San Francisco.
After an uneasy start, Caesar and Malcolm begin to build an alliance. Unfortunately, outside forces mainly Koba (Toby Kebbell) and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) have other plans…namely wiping their rival species out.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a success due to its amazing screenplay by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The trio successfully weaved Darwinism, hope and bigotry into the script, while showcasing that both humans and ape had a lot more in common than they realized.
While the film placed Clarke, Oldman, and Keri Russell at the top of the film’s marquee, its real stars are the apes! Serkis, Kebbell, Judy Greer and Karin Konoval did amazing work bringing the apes to life and set the standard when it comes to motion capturing a character for the Silver Screen.
Final thoughts & grade: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an intense science fiction thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat! After seeing this film, I have a feeling that fans would want a final act in this prequel series. A
