The Dawn Arrived

Planet of the Apes was an interesting movie in 1968, despite it’s rather silly premise. The following sequels were generally awful, Escape from Planet of the Apes being the only exception. Burton attempted recreate the original film, but failed. In 2011 a successful reboot took flight. While Rise of the Plant of the Apes didn’t capture my attention, it was a laudable effort in restarting an iconic film franchise. 2014 marks the year of successful sequels because Dawn of the Planet of the Apes blows its predecessors away and eviscerates Transformers: Age of Extinction.

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Genres: Action, Drama, Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction

Concept:

Without research, I would have concluded that Dawn’s concept resides in some semblance of originality. Dawn takes a myriad of narrative circumstances from Conquest and Battle. Normally this bothers me, but these elements are woven together with enough new content to disavow any labels as a remake. Like most post apocalypse worlds, humanity has been reduced to near extinction and their survival hinges upon circumstance X. Caesar and his apes throw in the extra complication needed to establish uniqueness.

Characters:

Caesar (Andy Serkis) continues as our protagonist for the apes. In the years following the end of Rise, Caesar has cemented his leadership. He believes apes have a greater resistance to evil deeds and teaches his people accordingly. Family and non-violence are valued above everything else. Caesar’s genuine desire to build a better society than humans makes him my favorite character of the film. His desire arises from his previous teacher (James Franco) and the mistakes of humanity. Realistic naivety colors Caesar’s decisions causing conflict to arise under his rule. Character stupidity transforms me into a rapid dog, hence my undying hatred for Shakespearean tragedies. However, Caesar’s naivety adds a refreshing depth. A leader willing to stand by his principles even when common sense would state otherwise.

Koba (Tony Kebbel) is Caesar’s second in command. Due to animal testing, Koba’s hatred for humans runs as deep as Caesar’s love for peace. Koba’s loyalty to Caesar is strong, but not unshakable. When contact with humans occurs, Caesar’s unwillingness to return violence for violence infuriates Koba. Slowly his loyalty shifts to insubordination, becoming the ape version of Brutus. As antagonists go, Koba compels me. His motivations change naturally and never crosses the “ludicrous” line.

Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) is Caesar’s eager and stubborn son. Compared to other apes, Caesar deals with complex quagmire of emotion towards humans. His son doesn’t understand and a rift forms between them which Koba uses in his machinations. Blue Eyes’ presence solidifies the family struggle needed to make Caesar’s character transcend compelling.

Malcolm (Jason Clarke) is a co-founder of a colony in San Francisco full of genetically immune humans. Like Caesar, he believes that human and ape coexistence is possible. This belief gives him admirable boldness to barter peace with Caesar and potentially sacrificing his life for the greater good of both races. I realize Malcolm resides in the “good guy” cliche, but he stands with few others in defense of the apes. A human willing to betray other survivors for peace without appearing synthetic.

Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) is the other founder of the colony. Unlike Malcolm, he refuses to believe that apes are intellect and after that is debunked, doesn’t believe that coexistence is possible. His person represents old world views, that put the entire colony at risk. Ultimately, Dreyfus disappoints me. His actions seem to lack the logic and cognitive processes of a leader.

Story:

Despite higher education criticism etiquette, I’ll start negative. Predictability always frustrates me no matter the context, thus reboots often irritate my critic sensibilities. We all know how this movie was going to end; humans and apes can never coexist. Knowledge of inevitable is the greatest flaw of Dawn and that’s awesome. Other flaws crop up, but I’ll get to those later.

Most movies have plot driven narratives, meaning events happen outside of the characters’ control; this is especially true of action films. Dawn’s narrative is primarily driven with character actions with the exception of background circumstances. Between the two, character driven narratives provide more dynamic stories. Both supporting and main characters deepen and actions have extra narrative force. It’s a refreshing change from normalcy. The main conflict, potential war between Apes and humans, derives from no external circumstances. One action causes everything to fall apart.

Good versus evil doesn’t seem to engage audiences like it did in the past. Personally, wonderful stories have been mused on such a premise; however, modern viewers seek characters who don’t reside in moral absolutes. Post-Simian Flu earth exists in mists of moral gray. Ten years of chaos have molded people within the San Francisco colony. Fear of a return to that time fuel their desire to find stable electricity. Caesar, with Maurice’s advice, rule over their fledging ape nation, unaware their location is near an old dam.

Dawn builds tension like a master builder and generates (unintentionally it seems) two astute observations about modern society.
1) Electric production is fundamental for modern society to function.
Almost everything runs off of our capacity to create electricity. Humankind’s ability to communicate quickly relies on a power gird, most modern technology require electricity to run. In industrialized nations, people don’t realize the entire world continues to reside in an energy crisis and if we lost that capacity, society would collapse. Dreyfus and Malcolm agree: once the salvageable fuel runs out their colony will descend into chaos. I appreciated the writers putting logical thought into how the conflict develops. Too often science fiction cobbles together piss-poor exposition that breaks under surface level criticism.
2) Hatred transcends reason.
Good science fiction displays a observable truth about the world, a statement about the human condition. Dawn does not disappoint in this area.

Koba takes the show in this regard. In lesser films, humans would have caused the war. They are the aggressors, but it makes sense. Given actions of apes in Rise and the devastating virus that almost destroyed humanity, certain people (Carver) tend to be trigger happy. Koba immediately wishes retribution with slaughter of humans. Caesar agrees to a show of force, but not to war. To the film’s credit, Koba’s betrayal ( Koba sneaks into the colony and steals an assault rifle. Using the weapon, Koba shoots Caesar and blames the deed on Malcolm’s group.) isn’t presented as a surprising plot twist. It’s pretty obvious Caesar’s second in command would be a problem. After the war ends and Caesar— with the help of Malcolm and Ellie—is once again leader of the apes, Malcolm warns that Dreyfus contacted a military base for help and troops are inbound. While the two share a bond of understanding, Caesar can’t stop further conflicts. He knows the apes will never trust humans again. Despite dethroning Koba, the damage is already done. A depressing, but appropriate ending.

There’s a refreshing amount of depth for the apes. My interest always drew back to Caesar and his companions. Dreyfus, Malcolm and other humans aren’t nearly that compelling. Thankfully Dawn rewards the viewer by focusing on the apes. They are the narrative glue that holds this plot together.
Minor problems:

San Francisco’s colony seems poorly written in certain particulars. Excluding my previous statements, Dreyfus and Malcolm are the only visible leadership among surviving humans; no council of officials, no evidence of elections or a system to delegate people’s skills and labor. The film glosses over these details and if it didn’t feed into other criticisms, I’d leave it alone. Conjecture: the writers left the colony’s structure ambiguous because it gave the apes an easy invasion. Their armory is overtaken allowing the apes to arms themselves. Why wasn’t the armory moved to a location thats harder for potential enemies to access or heavily guard it at all times. Any person with half a brain would do that. Granted these arguments could be deflated with background circumstance, but a little more effort in world building and I never would have mentioned them. A small blemish on a great story.

Score 8/10

Watching Dawn was awesome. I had to ponder and dig to find problems with the movie. Cosmetics don’t bring any extra favor to movies, but the computer generation is impressive. All of the apes look natural and don’t seem out of place. Hopefully this success will continue into the third installment.

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