A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace but it proves short-lived as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes represents a new frontier in movie-making.
That might sound like a bold claim, but once you see what the filmmakers have managed to achieve in this gripping continuation of the recently-rebooted Planet of the Apes series, you'll understand exactly why I'm so confident in saying it. Because this film, more than any other that I've ever seen, harnesses the power of computer-generated imagery (or CGI for short) to create living, breathing characters that we can not only believe are genuinely interacting with their environment - and, crucially, with the rest of the film's cast - but in whom we can invest just as much emotion as we would with a human actor.
There have been films that have used CGI characters well before. The T-1000 in Terminator 2 was perhaps the first example of CGI being used to create an artificial stand-in for a human that didn't merely look like a pale imitation of the real thing. And Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies was a watershed moment in creating a fantasy character that you truly accepted as being present on-screen, in the same way as you would a human cast member.
Well, this is the next step.
Caesar - the chief of the ape tribe in this movie (who we saw grow into this role in the previous movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) - is so convincingly-realised, through a combination of motion-capture technology using actor Andy Serkis and CGI artistry, that you don't ever even have that moment when you start to forget that he's a CGI character and accept him as part of the movie: instead, he's 100% real from the very beginning.
It's not just in the extremely high level of detail in his skin, his fur or even his lifelike, soulful eyes (although that's all part of it, and it's especially impressive in high-definition on Blu-Ray): it's in all of the subtle mannerisms, body language and posture that indicate that a person - or in this case, an animal - is the real thing rather than an artificial imitation. While some of the communication that takes place between the apes in this movie is verbal, a lot of it happens through sign language and body language, and this makes it all the more important that the filmmakers are able to pull off a convincing-feeling character who can convey as much through a glance or a shrug as he can through his voice.
Supporting characters realised through CGI are just as convincing: a hulking but gentle orangutan who serves as a moral conscience for the ape community is a brilliant character first and foremost - it's only after a while that you stop and consider what a massive technical achievement it represents too. And the antagonist within the apes - Kopa - is a wonderfully nasty creation who begins the film as a partly sympathetic character, but who descends into outright villainy by the end.
In terms of technical achievement, Avatar is perhaps the only recent movie that comes close to this level of sophistication - and even then, that movie was largely comprised of CGI alien characters in completely CGI alien environments, which is a lot easier to pull off than realistic-looking apes interacting with real-life actors in real-life environments, as we see here.
Despite the focus on the ape characters, the human cast is still important too. Jason Clarke plays a sympathetic sort who attempts to build bridges between the human and ape communities, while Gary Oldman plays an embattled human leader who struggles to deal with the escalating crisis as tensions build between the two factions. Oldman in particular gets one or two scenes that remind you what a great actor he is, so it's a little disappointing that he only really plays a supporting role in this film.
All of these solid performances (both CGI and real) would be worth nothing, however, if the story wasn't up to snuff. Luckily, it is, with director Matt Reeves showing an assured confidence as he gradually ratchets up the tension over the course of the first half of the movie. After a great credits-sequence montage that efficiently sets up an important part of the film's concept - that a virus has wiped out most of the world's human population - we're thrown ahead ten years, into a dystopian future in which power shortages and natural wastage mean that very little works properly, and disharmony between humans and apes poses a lurking threat in the background.
By gradually having the ape and human communities become closer over the first half of the movie - while also sowing seeds of mistrust through rogue players in both camps - Reeves brings things up to an almost unbearably-tense point before letting the action explode onto the screen. And when it comes, it's as intense and violent as you'd expect.
There are countless powerful images here, but perhaps none is more captivating than the sight of a giant army of apes on horseback, toting man-made automatic weapons, threatening to lay siege to the handful of humans that are still holding out in San Francisco. And shortly after that, a bravura battle scene simply demands that you sit up and take notice - including one incredibly ambitious unbroken shot that shows us a point-of-view scene from the turret of a human-operated tank that gets attacked and taken over by the apes.
But as the film rolls around to its grand conclusion, the violence and chaos begins to recede and take a backseat again, and Reeves returns to the heart of his story: the characters, and a climactic face-off between Caesar and Kopa that distills the essence of the film into a single scene. Without spoiling things, it encapsulates everything that Reeves has managed to do with the movie: using a group of CGI apes to make a very human statement about morality and the value of life, but also acknowledging the inevitability of conflict and - sometimes - the necessity of war, death and sacrifice.
It's heady stuff for an effects-driven blockbuster, but that just goes to show how ambitious and mould-breaking Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is.
rare that a sequel surpasses the first but since the recent remake of planet of the apes each movie has improved this looks at the apes and the humans as closer than people think and those similarities will push them into war or help them avoid it
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Please note this is a region B Blu-ray and will require a region B or region free Blu-ray player in order to play A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier They reach a fragile peace but it proves short-lived as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth&39;s dominant species Actors Gary Oldman Andy Serkis Keri Russell Judy Greer Jason ClarkeDirectors Matt ReevesClassification 12Run Time 130 minutes
Matt Reeves directs this big budget action sequel to 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (2011) starring Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Keri Russell. With Caesar (Serkis), the hyper-intelligent ape produced by human experimentation, now the leader of a growing band of cognisant simians, a fragile truce prevails between the apes and humans. Many consider the outbreak of war to only be a matter of time, however, since the human population has been vastly reduced by a devastating virus and their role as the dominant species on Earth is in question. As the tension ratchets up, it may only take a single spark to trigger an explosive war that will pit the humans against the apes in an all-out battle for survival...
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