Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Movie Review

In 2011, the Planet of the Apes series was rebooted with great success, resulting in one of the best films in the series. Three years on and a sequel “Dawn” has managed to continue this trend effortlessly, resulting in another brilliant summer blockbuster.

DOTPOTA picks up a few years after Rise with the human race all but wiped out as a result of the deadly simian flu. In the years since the virus began to spread, Caesar’s clan of apes has gone from strength to strength, having built a home in Muir Woods near San Francisco whilst the humans struggle in the city ruins. In the midst of the growing discontent, newcomer Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and his family (Keri Russel and Kodi Smit-McPhee) lead a team into the forests in a desperate bid to calm the tensions. Where the first film focused on build-up, Dawn goes to great lengths to employ tension, greatly raising the stakes in the process. It only takes one misstep from the humans or one error from the apes to ignite the fires of war and this is constantly emphasised through several close calls across the film’s narrative. Yet despite the increased emphasis on action and a struggle for power, the film never forgets the emotion that made the first film so memorable; the highlight of these comes in a particularly heartfelt scene which ties Dawn with its predecessor beautifully. Mix in new themes such as the importance of family and mankind’s reliance on technology and you have a plot just as engaging as the original film.

The new characters may possess quite a bit of screen-time but really it is Caesar (Andy Serkis) who is the star of the show; as the leader of the apes, he struggles to keep the peace amongst the humans and his own kind as well as being constantly at odds with the violent Koba (Toby Kebbel). On top of this Caesar is also bound to his family, which leads to even more emotion being conveyed. In fact the apes as a whole are given plentiful amounts of development this time around; it’s a real treat to see how they interact and communicate through sign language throughout the film. The human characters are also well done; main man Malcolm may not have too much of a back story but Clarke nonetheless does a good job of picking up from James Franco; Malcolm also has a family at stake and it’s this trait which provides another strong bond between him and Caesar. Gary Oldman is also great as Dreyfus; a kind of pseudo-antagonist and the de-facto leader of the humans. He wants to eliminate the apes from the picture but at the same time he only wants to save his own kind and rebuild the world, providing an interesting moral dilemma to his character. The only real drawback to the casting is similar to the last film; some of the human characters could have been much more memorable if they had more screen-time to develop and contribute to the overall plot.

Dawn maintains the reboot’s brilliant use of motion capture with even more apes on screen at once and significantly more expression being shown. You can feel the emotions of the apes when trouble comes their way. A greater atmosphere is built over the proceedings with the often harsh weather and the overgrown ruins of San Francisco, perfectly complimenting the disaster that has swept over the planet. This goes hand-in-hand with the editing which is once again stellar, providing a clear view of both the emotion on the faces and the action in the setting. The music used in the film is often slow and sombre, giving off a sense of sadness that permeates the endless struggles of the characters, but it also finds time to emphasise the beauty of the more intimate moments, proving that although tension exists between man and ape, cooperation and harmony can rise again. If you were impressed with first film’s technical presentation, Dawn won’t disappoint one bit.

Every bit as good as its predecessor, DOTPOTA is one of the best films of the summer, pushing the story forward whilst going into much more depth on the ape characters. You’d be doing yourself a great disservice by missing it.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Movie Review

The Planet of the Apes series is one of the longest running series in film history; beginning in 1968, the series has had its ups and downs over the years. Ten years on from Tim Burton’s mostly average remake in 2001, the series has been rebooted with a much improved refinement on the long running series.

Stripping away the space travel aspects from previous films, ROTPOTA takes place entirely on Earth and is immediately grounded in reality. With this springboard in mind, the film serves as an origins story chronicling the origins of the titular apes; James Franco plays Dr William Rodman, a scientist who is working on a potential cure for numerous mental health problems dubbed ALZ-112, the process of which involves experimenting on several live apes. Rodman takes in one particular ape named Caesar after his mother is killed in an escape attempt and raises him. But as Caesar begins to exhibit more intelligent and human-like behaviour, Rodman and his colleagues face increasingly difficult problems as they try to keep the situation under control. Throughout its hour and forty five minute run time, ROTPOTA puts across numerous themes that resonate in both its setting and our own reality; human nature and our lack of understanding, treatment of animals, the ethics of science and more which all coalesce to make a very thoughtful story. This combined with a potent mix of heartfelt moments and well filmed action makes the plot very engaging all the way through. But the greatest aspect of the film’s plot is its build-up; pressure gradually increases on Rodman to deliver to his superiors, save his father (played by John Lithgow) and keep Caesar safe from harm and as he pushes harder with his resources to make those results happen, it becomes clear that an inevitable catastrophe is closing fast. Audiences are sure to be fully hooked on the plot, but the film’s successes don’t stop there.

With the many emotional scenes layered across the plot, the characterisation always works to compliment these moments; at the heart of the film is the bond between William and Caesar, which goes through a great deal of development as William raises the clever chimp to adulthood and Caesar eventually begins to question whether he belongs with humans to with his own kind. William’s relationship with his father is also very emotional and plays into the plot very well. The character of Caesar portrayed by Andy Serkis is incredibly fascinating; he’s a deeply misunderstood member of society who only lets loose with violence in self-defence and yet he’s forced to endure so much over the course of the film; by the time ROTPOTA reaches its end, Caesar has grown into much more than an ape trying to fit in which contributes even more to an already solid plot. The only real issue with the cast is that some of the human characters could have had more development to make them feel more important to the overall narrative, particularly Rodman’s boss Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) who could have had more deliberation on the science tests before the climax but otherwise everyone does a fine job selling the characters.

It’s hard to believe just from reading this review, but the motion capture technology used in ROTPOTA could be the finest use of the technology ever seen in a live action film. From beginning to end, the apes really do look shockingly life-like from the movements to the facial expressions thanks to the efforts of Andy Serkis and the visual effects team. But the brilliant work doesn’t stop there; the action is always well framed which really makes an impact with the more extravagant scenes such as when Caesar climbs the redwood trees and observes San Francisco in the distance as well as many other wide shots which put across the scale of the more action packed moments. The music is both heartfelt and tense, perfectly matching the mix of emotion and action the film gives to us. What it comes down to is that ROTPOTA ultimately does just as good a job on the technical as it does plot and characterisation.

ROTPOTA is an incredibly thoughtful and satisfying reboot that could well end up standing on the same level as the original 1968 classic. It’s a brilliant new beginning for the series and it’s a summer blockbuster well worth watching.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars 

Transformers: Age of Extinction Movie Review

For seven years now the Transformers series has built a reputation on enraging critics and serious film-goers the world over whilst still being able make millions in the process. Age of Extinction claims to be a new beginning for the series but really it’s just the same old rubbish that was already done to death after three films.

Several years after the Transformer’s battle in Chicago, the autobots have gone into hiding with the US government attempting to corner and exterminate the transformers one by one. From this setting inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Walhberg) discovers an injured Optimus Prime and him and his family are eventually caught up in the conspiracy which escalates into even more combat between humans, autobots and decepticons, cue more of the same wanton destruction and carnage seen in countless other Michael Bay movies. The film’s pacing is a complete mess; new characters and plot threads are introduced without any warning or development whatsoever and once again like 2009’s Revenge of the Fallen, the movie is riddled with rushed moments, stupid comedy that isn’t at all funny, “emotional” scenes that don’t provide any development and throwaway scenes which pad out the film’s length to an exhaustingly bloated level. And as with the other films of the series, the script is filled with a lack of sense that really drags the film down; at first the autobots are hiding from humans as the government is hunting them but then suddenly they’re tearing up the cities of Chicago and Hong Kong in full blown combat as if nothing happened. In addition, quite a few of the action sequences are ones which were used already in previous films only shot from different angles, such as the freeway chase and the fight in Chicago (which may well have reused some resources from the previous film) to name a few. Unfortunately this laziness also extends to the Dinobots who are poorly developed and only serve as a gimmick to lure audiences in for this latest entry in the series. Like Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon before it, Age of Extinction’s plot really serves no purpose at all; it just trundles along to get the action going and the sad fact is, that’s pretty much all the target audience cares about these days.

As with many Michael Bay films, the acting and dialogue are often horrendous, chock full of cringe-worthy one-liners and under-developed characters. The relationship between inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) had potential but it doesn’t amount to anything at all; Walhberg is merely a replacement for Shia LaBeouf and Peltz is just plain annoying in her delivery, once again fitting the bill of an actress casted only for looks rather than talent that Bay has become far too reliant on. The other characters don’t fare much better; they’re either relegated to the worthless comedy present throughout the film or serving miniscule roles at worst, such as a Chinese business woman who for no apparent reason starts breaking out karate in the middle of an action scene. Even the main villains are so one dimensional they can never make a bit of an impact on the proceedings; heck we don’t know their names throughout most of the movie!

With everything wrong with this film, at least the CGI is still half-decent; the transforming effects by Industrial Light and Magic still look quite good, particularly with all the moving parts on the autobots. Unfortunately now four films in, even the CG is starting to show its faults. The newer Decepticons who transform using molecules rather than moving parts clearly look like a video game, rather than an actual part of the film. And unfortunately the action is simply too frantically edited to be effective most of the time; while the camera often shows many wide shots of the transformers to give off a sense of scale, the more intimate action jumps nauseatingly between close-up and mid-shots which doesn’t provide a clear view of the action across most of the film. The music continues to be irregularly placed, trying to build some emotion when really there is no emotion to build in a film like this. Ultimately what started out a great looking technical presentation has taken a step backwards with Age of Extinction.

Transformers: Age of Extinction should be viewed as one of the worst films of the year. Truly the words “Call of Duty of the film industry” are an accurate way of describing the series nowadays; it’s the same rehashed, mindless and awful garbage regurgitated over the years to satisfy the shortest of attention spans and yet because of a few gimmicks hyped up to no end, it’s still going to sell no matter how much of a beating it takes from critics. If you’re looking for the same crappy film this summer, you’ll get it, but for those who are genuinely serious about seeing well-made pieces of work at the cinema, stay as far away as possible.

Rating: 1/5 Stars