NEW DAWN RISES
WHEN it comes to setting a new bar for jaw- dropping cinema, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes isn’t monkeying around.
This eye- opening psychological survival tale boasts staggering technology and another phenomenal turn from performance capture pioneer Andy Serkis, who’s back in the swing of things as ape leader Caesar.
Serkis ( aka the genius behind Gollum and King Kong) first wowed us as Caesar in Dawn’s 2011 predecessor, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.
One of the things that made that movie so special was how a computer- generated chimp could be a completely believable character, with feelings and expressions. Dawn ramps that up a notch. It is set 10 years after Rise. In the intervening decade the world’s human population has been ravaged by the simian flu, with a small pocket of survivors eking out an existence in San Francisco. Meanwhile, up in the mountains, Caesar and the apes have flourished.
Instead of one remarkably believable ape, you have hundreds. But the two worlds are about to collide and once-tortured apes such as the creepy Koba ( Toby Kebbell) aren’t as willing as Caesar to trust humans.
Director Matt Reeves toys with your allegiance to both sides and makes fascinating parallels between them, such as the similarities between Caesar and human leader Malcolm ( Aussie Jason Clarke).
While the ape performances are superb, opposite them is an excellent human cast. Gary Oldman is the more triggerhappy human leader, while Clarke’s compassionate Malcolm is trying to rebuild a life with his teenage son ( also played by an Australian, Kodi Smit- McPhee) and new partner ( Keri Russell).
For a movie about talking chimps, the scary thing is, this is not all that far- fetched. Certainly the virus aspect.
Led by Serkis and the gurus at WETA Digital, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes ushers in a new level of technical wizardry with astonishing results.