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| Directed by Matt Reeves |
Reboots can be a funny thing. Sometimes you get a work that takes existing characters and settings and gives a new and intriguing perspective on them, like the 21st' Century Battlestar Galactica, or at least the first two seasons. Other times you get a work that just takes existing characters and settings and uses them to get people into the theater, like the Amazing Spider-Man films. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, despite its awkward title, belongs in the prior category, taking the route of a character focused drama that just happened to be about a chimpanzee.
Said chimpanzee was a test subject named Caesar, played by motion-capture specialist Andy Serkis, who was granted human level intelligence by an experimental drug meant to treat Alzheimer's disease. After a rather rough experience with animal control, he liberated the other apes there, granted them super intelligence as well, and lead a charge out into the forests around San Francisco.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes picks up a decade later, after said drug has started a plague, dubbed the "Simian Flu", which has wiped out most of humanity. Caesar's colony of apes has continued to grow, and as far as they are concerned, it doesn't matter whether there were good humans, they haven't seen any of us in two years. Until one day, a chance encounter with a group of survivors seeking to restart a hydroelectric plant where the apes have built their home rekindles old conflicts. Caesar wants peace with the humans and thinks that if he just lets them fix their lights, they will go home and leave the apes alone. His general Koba, an animal testing survivor that has only ever seen the bad side of humans, believes that they cannot be trusted and desires to lead an invasion of their colony.
One of this movie's strong points is that it doesn't paint either side as entirely right or wrong. Koba has good reason to mistrust humans, and not just his personal experiences as a test subject. When he sees that one of the human repair crew brought a gun with them, he interprets it as war and decides to frame them for an assassination attempt against Caesar. The human's commander, played well by Gary Oldman, has good reason to not work the apes. The humans have almost run out of fuel for diesel generators, and he is determined to get that power running again, and he's not going to let a bunch of animals get in the way. A major theme of this film is how fragile peace is, and that all it can take is one madman, or ape, with a gun to shatter that peace.
The film looks amazing, the motion capture animation used for the apes manages to climb out of the uncanny valley on the side of realism, and the actors underneath do a fantastic job. Most of the action is set aside for act three, much like the first Apes reboot, but said action is thrilling. It's well shot, the effects have never looked better, and it manages to be taken seriously despite the image of a chimpanzee dual wielding assault rifles on horseback. One critic described it as "a war movie, but with monkeys".
There are problems to be sure, a subplot involving Caesar's mate giving birth to a second son feels like most of it was cut for time, and understandably since at 131 minutes it pushes the tolerable length of non-fantasy blockbusters, and it is odd that after the first film was so un-subtly pro-animal rights, that the apes are now using horses as beasts of burden. However, those are only minor issues in what is one of the best films of the summer. As far as reboots go, Planet of the Apes has certainly gotten a better treatment than say, Star Trek has. I strongly recommend it.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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