Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
(2014)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps the most damning thing one can say about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is that,
despite featuring 99% less of the ubiquitous James Franco (he’s ubiquitous, so he
has to be in there somewhere), it’s not as good as its predecessor. That’s not fault of the filmmaking, nor the
performances, but a script that is unable to strike out beyond the pedestrian
premise of “Can warring tribes ever broker lasting peace?” And yet, if ever
there was a movie that is more than the some of its parts, this is it. Matt
Reeves has made a Planet of the Apes
movie to be proud of, and its greatest asset, as with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, is the mo-capped apes themselves
who engage in much more full-bodied and emotionally satisfying manner than
their human counterparts.
This may in part be because what is typed on the page,
courtesy of Mark Bomback, (whose patchy career includes of a number of so-so to
lame remakes – Total Recall, Race to Witch Mountain – and less than perfectly
formed sequels – Die Hard 4.0, The Wolverine) and returning duo Rick Jaffa and
Amanda Silver, can only ever be the loosest of templates as so much must be
expressed by body language and on screen interaction. The perfunctory dialogue
that mars almost every human relationship is an asset for the apes, as their
words are intentionally perfunctory, half-formed or don’t elicit the same “Did
he really just say that?” response when subtitled.
The opening titles pick up where the end titles of Rise left off, charting the path of the
virus that pegs the demise of humanity. This use of maps to show its progress
is effective, the “documentary” footage maybe less so; the inclusion of the
current US President is wearily predictable, and has a kind of reverse
verisimilitude (you end up wondering what speech they swiped the snippet from).
Mainly, its because this summary device has become over-familiar of late; it’s
easy to make it work, difficult to make it stand out. We had it a month or so
ago in Godzilla, which also gave us
its own (localised) post-apocalyptic cityscape. Despite the global events it
follows, Dawn’s canvas is altogether
smaller than that movie, and not just in screen ratio.
For the most part these choices of scale make
sense, and it’s a better movie when it tries to avoid blockbuster spectacle.
This is a more intimate drama; as noted, it depicts rival factions battling
over a small area, rather than whole coastlines ripped asunder. I liked the
mention of nuclear power stations melting down in the preamble, since this is usually conveniently ignored in tales of survivors of the collapse of civilisation. Less plausible
is that none of the humans seem to be suffering ill effects from this 10 years on. Perhaps they aren’t in
a hot spot? I wondered if, the acknowledgement of the nuclear age was a wink to Beneath the Planet of the Apes and its mutant
worshippers of the atom bomb (also revisited in the final chapter). I’d be all
in favour of the series visiting something so extravagantly sci-fi in a later instalment
(I’m doubtful, however, the watchword of these movies so far has been “grounded”).
But, as with the humans herded into cages by apes, it’s a nice subtle call back
to the originals.
From there we move onto an encounter with Caesar (Andy
Serkis, in another outstanding performance; just occasionally, there’s a
glimmer of Gollum in there, but what great actor doesn’t tip us his with his
tics and rhythms?) and a hunting expedition in which we’re introduced to his
main compatriots. I’ll return to that, but the best feature announced in this
sequence is the confidence to tell stories in words and pictures rather than
dialogue. The contrast with the lack of finesse in the humans’ interactions
couldn’t be more acute. They are
making a go of things in the ruins of San Francisco, determined to bring power
back to their settlement through repairing a hydroelectric dam… that just
happens to be in ape territory.
Dawn’s humans
can’t cut it, not only against the apes but also in terms of maintaining
audience interest. I suspect most would agree that people power isn’t the
strongest element of Rise, but this is
more down to the anodyne presence of the ubiquitous Franco than anything
inherently weak about his character’s relationship with Caesar. Indeed, the
plotline involving father John Lithgow is quite touching and well developed. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes might be
the first movie in which someone (Caesar) goes into a nostalgic reverie for
James Franco, and thusly Gary Oldman’s character may have a point when he
denies apes as an intelligent species. Jason Clarke is a much more interesting
actor than Franco, but Malcolm is wafer thin in conceptualisation and
motivation. He’s the sympathetic human, the surrogate Franco (what a terrible
burden!) It was possible to believe in the connection between Caesar and Rodman
in Rise, but when Caesar swears
friendship to Malcom it comes across as not so much a lapse in judgement (of
which more shortly), but premature sincerity as there has been little on screen
to justify such depth of feeling. And, for all his qualities as a performer,
Clarke as an actor doesn’t give off huggy-feely sincerity.
The other actors playing the humans are also unable to give much substance to their slender characters. Gary Oldman can do little with his protesting-too-much
leader. It’s a slightly more youthful Oldman role than of late, but he
disappears into it much as he did Commissioner Gordon. There was a time when
you didn’t expect less than fireworks from the actor. Now it’s generally
surprised if he doesn’t send you into a snooze. You can’t blame him for not
being able to make a silk purse out of a character who stubbornly refuses to
believe apes are smart, has a token weepy scene over an iPad (that’s his
motivation, right there!) and come the end just wants to blow shit up, but
Oldman did take the damn dirty part.
Fringe’s Kirk Acevedo at least makes the most of playing up unadulterated
anti-ape bigotry, but there’s a fine line between enjoyable cliché and the groan
inducing (such as when an adorable CGI baby ape poddles over to his
gun-concealing toolbox and Acevedo inevitably goes ballistic at it). Keri
Russell is as wholesomely pretty as ever, but entirely redundant while Kodi
Smit-McPhee, who looks increasingly like Jay Baruchel’s little brother, gets a
nice scene with orang-utan Maurice. Unfortunately, the father-son-surrogate mom
dynamic between Lucas, Russell, and Smith-McPhee is lacklustre. The devices
used to engender trust and its breaking between apes and humans arrive in a
package of maximum familiarity (the humans help Caesar’s wife – thank goodness
for human antibiotics!, the humans get trapped in a rock fall but the apes
fetch them out – hurrah!) It’s really a tribute to Reeves’ direction that so
much of this gets by relatively unscathed. In lesser hands the corn would be
dripping from their ears.
But what doesn’t work for the humans does for the apes. The
interactions, relieved of the terribly clunky exposition that plagues
(particularly Oldman’s) their less hirsute counterparts, are on occasions even
subtle. The relationship between Caesar and Koba is especially compelling. The
latter, a victim of laboratory cruelty and with the many scars to prove it, is
masterfully performed by Toby Kebbell (who looks like he may well break it big
in the next couple of years, even if its as pure villainy). Kebbell replaces
Christopher Gordon, who played Koba in Rise,
and delivers a superbly imagined ape; his features are not unlike those of
Spike in Gremlins, midway through his
water fountain meltdown at the climax, and Koba’s progress from barely suppressed
violence (towards humans, and then apes) and reluctant submission (to Caesar;
the hand gestures and body language signifying dominance are marvellous) to
out-and-out infamy (his shrewdly executed overthrow is marred only by not
hitting his target dead centre).
Whenever Koba is onscreen, all eyes are off Caesar. That’s
really an indication of how good Kebbell is. There are some beautifully
rendered moments involving the character; the much-trailed sequence in which he
overcomes two drunk human guards through putting on a gormless circus ape act
is both funny and chilling, his face down of a tank on horseback should be
ridiculous but it’s near-sublime. If there’s a criticism, it’s that the writers
push the damaged ape into uber-villain territory at the end. He’s crafty enough
that he should know killing his own kind in full view, and with considerable
panache, is a daft move; the picture arguably doesn’t need this development as
there’s sufficient meat in an inevitable showdown with Caesar, and it puts a
spotlight on the broad strokes that strong acting and direction have done so
much to conceal. Likewise, the fight between Koba and Caesar is an unnecessary
set piece too far; I know I’d have been quite satisfied with something a bit
more cerebral at this point, rather than giddy acrobatics.
That’s fairly minor criticism set against how good most of the
apes material is, though. Karin Konoval (no, I had no idea he was a she) is
enormously sympathetic as the huge, sensitive and wise orang-utan Maurice. Nick
Thurston has to go through a standard troubled teen plotline as Blue Eyes,
Cornelius’ rebellious son, but there’s enough genuine reason to doubt his
father to make the journey a convincing one. In contrast, the wonderful Judy
Greer gets a non-role as Caesar’s missus.
One of the more intriguing elements of Dawn is that, even though the tale is wholly linear and lacking in
depth in terms of its relationships, it gives us a hero protagonist who makes
the wrong decisions at almost every turn. Koba may be twisted with hate, but
he’s spot-on about the humans’ motivations (for all his nominal good guy
status, Malcolm never comes clean with Caesar about what his colleagues are up
to; if he had, it might have curtailed Koba’s coup), and Caesar’s forlorn hope
that a fragile peace can exist is completely wrong-footed. Even if his deranged
lieutenant didn’t hinder Caesar, he’d still face the insurmountable obstacle
that Malcolm is very much the exception in terms of humans looking for a peaceful
answer. You can’t fault the leader of the apes for reaching for the best of all
worlds, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a strong leader.
By the end he must
resort to a technical opt-out as justification for breaking the cardinal ape
rule he imposed (Koba isn’t an ape
because he doesn’t uphold ape values, the very values Caesar is breaking by
killing him). It makes for (hopefully) a more interesting and flawed character
in the next sequel; Caesar may be undergoing a Michael Corleone-like arc as he
descends into the world of compromises dictated by any seat of power. While
it’s a positive that Dawn doesn’t go
down the route of installing its main character with easy virtues, one is left wondering how conscious this is
and how much a consequence of getting from A to B with the plotting; purely
because there is no semblance of nuance elsewhere in the writing.
Reeves' direction is unselfconscious; servicing the story is
always at the forefront of his mind, which may be why, even though this is in Real
3D, one is barely aware of the extra dimension. One-time Alan Parker
right-hand cinematographer Michael Seresin delivers a dank, rain-drenched
landscape of forests and decaying architecture. It’s one in which the CGI additions
are nigh seamless. Sure, we’re aware that these aren’t physical creatures
(although Maurice and Koba are especially convincing; the closer the animators come
to human features the less confident the results are; consequently, Blue Eyes
is the weakest of the designs) but, in contrast to many CGI-infested movies, we
are so invested in their creations that it scarcely impacts our enjoyment.
Michael Giacchino’s score is every bit as good as we’ve come to expect from the
composer, who has seamlessly made the jump from TV to movies.
Dawn of the Planet of
the Apes is not quite Rise’s
equal. It lacks, well, the narrative hook that comes from Caesar’s path to a
state of awareness and rebellion. In its place, we are presented with bog
standard battling (which is essentially what we saw in the last and meagerest
of the original movies). So it’s a testament to Reeves’ work that Dawn gets as close as it does. The
disappointing tack for a third instalment would be War of the Planet of the Apes (what with the army on the move at
the end of Dawn), since there would be no greater
potential for narrative intrigue there than here. The problem with the linear
trajectory embraced in this re-envisioning of the series is that the many of the more philosophical
concepts have been ironed out along with the jigsaw element of mystery. Rise caught a break with its premise,
but someone needs to come on board with a plot the conceptually matches the scope
of the material. For now, though, Dawn
is much better than anyone might reasonably expect of such a meat-and-potatoes
narrative.
***1/2
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