Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (Matt Reeves)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Also, if you pay attention, all of the apes' dialogue is in iambic pentameter.

Now that's impressive. Signing in any rhythm and meter is difficult.

[Winston*]

Conversely, the humans' dialogue is all in prose. A subtle way of showing that they are going to become the lower class.

[Pop Trash]

I think those connections are pretty tenuous and superficial. I never got a Shakespearean feel at all.

Maybe so, but I have Rick Jaffa, one of the screenwriters, right here. Take it away Rick.

In the first movie, there was a bit of—forgive me for this!—there was a bit of Shakespeare’s Henry V, of Prince Hal. We thought it would be interesting to use Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as a bit of a template for this movie, with themes of brotherhood and betrayal.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Maybe so, but I have Rick Jaffa, one of the screenwriters, right here. Take it away Rick.

That's cool and all, but pretty much any movie can be said to have a Shakespearean theme. Thus is the greatness of Shakespeare. I mean, I see the connection, I just don't think it's very noteworthy, nor does it add anything to the quality of the narrative.

[Morris Schæffer]

I didn't notice that he was. Was he referred to as such, or was there a name tag I missed?

Dreyfus

[max314]

The Jaffa-Silver, husband-wife, writer-producer team have championed a smart, story-lead blockbuster that balances geopolitical commentary with gripping entertainment, computer graphic spectacle with sensitive staging, and B-movie thrills with intimately drawn characters and relationships.

A clumsily titled film about talking monkeys has no right to be this good.

★★★★★

[Milky Joe]

This was so bad, I don't even, huh? 4 stars? This was the laziest piece of crap CGI spectacle I've seen since Godzilla. Bland white male human protagonist, check. Bland, utterly perfunctory female sidekick, check. Token wife monkey having a child, check. Bland, perfunctory, boring teenager, check. Irrationally angry guy. Token black guy. I don't even remember any of their names. Caesar is the only interesting character whatsoever and that's almost entirely due to knowing his backstory from the immensely superior first film.

This was just so stupid. I can't believe I'm the only nay.

[TGM]

I have found that this one really already hasn't stuck with me quite like the first one has. Still good, but I'd say that Rise was overall superior.

[EyesWideOpen]

Now that I've finally watched this one and rewatched all the rest over the last month here's my ranking for my favorite film series of all time:

1. Planet of the Apes (1968)
2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
4. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (unrated version/has original completely different ending)
5. Beneath the Planet of the Apes
6. Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Top 6 are all very good films, the bottom 2 not terrible just very mediocre

7. Battle for the Planet of the Apes
8. Planet of the Apes (Burton)

[max314]

This was so bad, I don't even, huh? 4 stars? This was the laziest piece of crap CGI spectacle I've seen since Godzilla. Bland white male human protagonist, check. Bland, utterly perfunctory female sidekick, check. Token wife monkey having a child, check. Bland, perfunctory, boring teenager, check. Irrationally angry guy. Token black guy. I don't even remember any of their names. Caesar is the only interesting character whatsoever and that's almost entirely due to knowing his backstory from the immensely superior first film.

This was just so stupid. I can't believe I'm the only nay.

It's a Hollywood movie. Those trappings are to be expected.

What matters is what Matt Reeves and the Jaffa-Silver team do with said trappings.

[Spinal]

This was so bad, I don't even, huh? 4 stars? This was the laziest piece of crap CGI spectacle I've seen since Godzilla

This was just so stupid. I can't believe I'm the only nay.

Mine was a somewhat reluctant yay. I agree that the first film was much more engaging and rich character-wise, as well as having better action scenes.

One thing I did like about this film is that it suggests that wars aren't fought because of differences in race or creed, as much as because every large group has assholes that antagonize, exploit fear and screw everything up for everybody else.

[Pop Trash]

Token wife monkey having a child, check.

lol @ this being on your list of cliches.

[Watashi]

lol @ this being on your list of cliches.

That cliche appears in every movie, dude.

[Wryan]

Saw this while I was in London, cause I wanted to see something at Leicester Square. Thought it was fantastic. Beautiful imagery and great work from the mo-cap actors/special effects peeps. Damn, Koba was freaking scary as shit, all the more because he had pretty legitimate grievances and saw some obvious problems developing. Nice message about missed connections and crossed wires.

[Milky Joe]

It's a Hollywood movie. Those trappings are to be expected.

What matters is what Matt Reeves and the Jaffa-Silver team do with said trappings.

Sure. My point was that they didn't do anything interesting with the trappings, like, at all. They were just there. Good CGI mo-cap work doesn't excuse the fact that the script was a half-baked piece of monkey crap like most big-budget Hollywood fare.

"Token wife having a child in the midst of a crisis providing motivation for the male protagonist" is most definitely a cliché. Just because it's a monkey doesn't suddenly make it good or original.

[Pop Trash]

Scripts are overrated.

[Milky Joe]

:| So movies should just be vapid and incoherent excuses to show off special effects?

[Bosco B Thug]

Compelling geopolitical drama, nice Shakespearean aspirations, great Young Republican ending resolute about all-out war and monocultural endgame (with a human/ape friendship fully realizing on such a resolution), great Giacchino score, questionable everything else.

[Ivan Drago]

Could've sworn I posted in this thread a month ago. . .but I saw this movie again this weekend, and I still think it's the best movie of the summer, and one of the best movies of the year so far. Matt Reeves put his stamp on this movie, the visual effects are jaw-dropping, Serkis is tremendous. . .the entire movie is just visual storytelling at its finest, with compelling substance to boot.

[Pop Trash]

the entire movie is just visual storytelling at its finest, with compelling substance to boot.

Yeah no kidding. I remember having a conversation about sign language with a cinephile buddy of mine. Something along the lines of it being inherently cinematic because it is a strictly visual language (I think we were discussing Altman's Nashville and Haneke's Code Unknown)...anyway this movie reinforced that notion.

[Melville]

Conversely, the humans' dialogue is all in prose. A subtle way of showing that they are going to become the lower class.

:lol: Funniest exchange on MC since Boner and KF's grudge match outside Wal Mart.

Anyway, I thought the movie was excellent until [

Show Spoiler

Caesar turned up alive

]. Before that, it was a compelling, dramatic story of tribalism, anger and mistrust, and war...but starring talking monkeys. Brilliant. [

Show Spoiler

And if Caesar had died, it would have made for a striking narrative turn.

] But after that point it devolved into increasingly cliched Hollywood scenes of contrived suspense, hammy villainy, and overblown action, complete with [

Show Spoiler

the villain yelling 'NOOOO!' while falling to his death.

]

[Stay Puft]

Anyway, I thought the movie was excellent until [

Show Spoiler

Caesar turned up alive

]

Completely agree with this. It's an impressive production, great special effects, and the story engaging up until that point, at which it just became silly. Felt like a cop-out, and I had almost completely tuned out by the end during that CGI showdown on the tower. Some of the earlier battle scenes managed to feel grounded and tangible, but that showdown was nonsense. I still loved the final moments, though, with Jason Clarke receding into the shadows as Caesar looks out over his clan, and the last shot being an echo of the opening.

[D_Davis]

Incredible.

This film elevates this franchise to my favorite new genre series.

Gorgeous looking, fantastic acting, tense action, and expertly made.

Also, the best special effects I've ever seen. Can't wait for the 3rd.

[Skitch]

I cannot believe MC is so pro on this flick. This might be the worst movie I've seen from 2014 so far. Especially the third act. Things happen for no reason (why did all the apes want the tower?), the film goes day night day night with Michael Bay consistency (none), human motivations nonsensical and failing [

Show Spoiler

(lets blow the tower! They do but only kill themselves)

]...this was a fucking trainwreck. And I havent even mentioned the bipolar CGI...

[Dead & Messed Up]

Hah, I chose to watch this tonight independent of your post and had a completely different reaction, finding it a tremendously simple but effective story. The third act dips a little too much into cliche, but even then it invigorates the cliche by giving it meaning - the tall fall is a critical moment for Caesar, pushing him to accept a new moral complexity, one he is clearly not thrilled by. And how about that final image we see of a person, simply receding from view. At the least, it's fucking gorgeous, Reeves lensing the film with crisp classical direction, critical moments given an extra finesse (the tank image literally swerves the film into its second half).

What I really appreciated was how the film simply introduces characters, gives them their motivations, and lets them loose to clash. There are no huge reversals or surprises, no twists, just a story of people incapable of coexisting. Put it this way. This is one of the first genre films I've seen in ages where I was dreading the upcoming battles, because I cared so much about people on both sides. In that regard, it's a stunning rejection of boilerplate summer thrills. There's an elegance here, and a trust in the audience - the first 12 minutes trust we will care with only expression and sign language and visual storytelling.

I'm with Davis. Barring my shoddy memory, this is now the best sci-fi franchise around.