Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews...

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the long-awaited sequel to the surprise hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes back in 2011. It's got a mostly new cast, including Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman, as well as Andy Serkis returning as Caesar. It's set ten-ish years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, with both the virus from the end of the first film and anarchy between most humans nearly wiping out the human race.

Jason Clarke, Keri Russel, and the guy from The Walking Dead with the tank, if you remember him.

First off, let's talk about the plot of the film. While the first one was set in a modern day setting, this one is more surrounding a post-apocalyptic setting and tone, with both the human and ape characters having to live in a post-apocalyptic world. Now, what I liked a lot about the overall plot of the film was that I really didn't know where it was going. The film kept me guessing as to how it was going to end up. That being said, there were some parts where I could kind of guess how a scene was going to end, and I was usually right, but the fact that the plot overall was unpredictable makes up for that.

The actors in the film all do a pretty good job with the characters they're playing. Jason Clarke plays the main human character of the film, and he does a pretty good job. I didn't really remember his character that much, but I'll talk more about that later. Gary Oldman does a pretty good job, although I found him to be seriously underused. Despite what the trailers made me believe, he's not really the villain of the film, and isn't in the film a whole lot. However, if there's one absolutely great part of the cast, it's Andy Serkis as Caesar. This guy does such an outstanding job with the role, he's completely believable in the role, and he really makes this movie. He still doesn't have an oscar nomination, and I'm seriously hoping this will be the one.

Gary Oldman as Dreyfus

However, like I said before, I have to address my main issue with the film, which is the characters, mainly the human characters. The apes are pretty cool, especially Caesar & Koba (also returning from the first film). But I didn't really remember the human characters all that well. Like I said before, Gary Oldmans characters is really underused, most of the human characters get little screen time. Most of their dialogue is pretty good, save for a few moments where it's expositional dialogue. If you don't know what that means, it's basically characters saying lines just for the sake of getting information to the audience.

Yeah, the visuals in this film are pretty amazing, I'll get to that in a second.

If the human characters are the weakest part of the film, then I'd have to say the strongest part is the special effects of the film. This film looks great, and the apes just look real. I never have the dwindling thought that they're emotion capture apes, they look and sound like they are really there. The last film didn't win the oscar for visual effects, but I have no doubt in my mind that this one will win, because these effects are insane.

Final Rating
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a very enjoyable film, with fantastic CGI, an interesting plot, and some really strong performances. The human characters are a bit forgettable, but if the weakest part of a film focused on apes is the human characters, well I'm willing to look past that. If you liked the first one, I'd say go see it.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: 4/5