Movie #11 of 2017:
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
This movie is overshadowed in two directions: it doesn’t quite reach the storytelling heights of its predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) that revived the series, nor does it ever get as bonkers as Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), from which it lovingly borrows and remixes key elements like Caesar’s realization that his species can be as cruel as humanity. In rewatching it now in anticipation of this weekend’s release of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), I’m also struck by how much of the plot is left up in the air as a cliffhanger for War to resolve. Depending on how good that next Apes movie turns out to be, I feel like we might look back on Dawn as the largely forgettable bridge between two big moments in Caesar’s history.
Still, this movie is decent enough in its own right. The decision to tell much of the story’s dialogue through subtitled ape sign language gives it a very different feel from Rise, which really told an extraordinary amount of character and plot information through nonverbal visuals alone. And even though the Dawn plot ends on a cliffhanger with the incoming military forces, the central conflict between the new human settlers of San Francisco and their ape neighbors is well-told with legitimate motivations on all sides. I love that the villains are basically reasonable individuals who care for their loved ones, and the script goes out of its way to humanize (/chimpize?) them. I wish we could have gotten more worldbuilding in terms of how ape and human society alike have changed in the ten years between Rise and Dawn, but the hints we get are pretty compelling. That’s another thread that I hope War dives into more fully.
★★★★☆
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