Back in 2011 the world was given a film that noone asked for. Or at least noone in the entire world was waiting for. Back in 1973 the final Planet of The Apes film was released and the franchise was already stretched pretty thin. With the exception of the first one, the remaining 4 films were lacking a bit. The first was a legendary film pretty much on initial release and it has remained so until...well, right now actually. But, we are still not in the present day. In 2001, one of my favorite directors decided to do a remake of the legendary film. Tim Burton's Planet of The Apes was...um...different. The original had one of the first and greatest twist endings of all time so how was Burton gonna do a remake when everyone knows the ending? I really mean everyone! Even people that hadn't ever seen the film know. Go find a copy of the film on just about any medium and guess what's on the cover? DING, DING, DING...the twist ending. That's a stupid marketing technique even for a movie that was released in 1968. It does take some people a long time to get around to watching a movie. Anyway, Burton made his film, and while he did a good job with the ape makeup and some of the actors, he really did botch the whole thing. As I was saying at the beginning, 2011 brought us Rise of The Planet of The Apes. And it really did not suck. Acted well and the story was good and engaging, but it was the special effects that were out of this world. So we finally got a true Apes film that can go along with the original.
So, let us fast forward to the present shall we? We have just been given, what I believe to be, the only film in the Apes series that can live up to the legend. Dawn of The Planet of The Apes is an absolute smashing ride from beginning to the end. I can really only name one actor in the film and that is Gary Oldman. But, finally we get an Apes film with the humans taking the back seat to the title characters. Don't get me wrong every human does a great job but the award here should go to Andy Serkis and his gang of actors playing the mix of simian creatures. Yeah there happens to be no actual apes in the movie. This film centers on Caesar, which if anyone remembers he was the first Ape in the series to actually speak and he was the responsible party for all other apes getting smarter as well. Not one person or character does a bad job in this film and I mean not one!
The writers of the story did such a great job in making the actual apes, in an Apes film, be the main characters. It is the first time in the series this has happened and it's about time too. We always had the humans as main characters and the apes were secondary. Now that is just dumb to say the least! I guess since the wrong has been righted so better late than never. The story takes place a full 10 years after Rise so the writers had to pretty much start from scratch with the exception of Caesar and his origin from that film. Story is very good and a few times heart wrenching because I started seeing the apes as people, in a way. Please do yourself a favor and watch this movie!
The special effects are, for lack of a better word, spectacular! Considering what I said earlier about there being no apes in the film, that means they all had to be made with computer generated imagery. All the parts were acted with an actual actor and they filmed the movie this way using motion capture then the effects people put computer imagery over the actor's performances. There is no way to tell the difference even if they brought a real ape onto the set and told you pick the real one. Some of the single best effects I have ever personally seen and I have seen a few number of films in my day.
I would recommend this to everyone. It has something for all! Lots of action, tense moments, family scenes and drama. One of the single best film I have seen all year by far.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
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