I watched the first prologue to the famous Planet of the Apes franchise and reviewed it earlier. Here it is. If you want a quick version of my thoughts on that, lemme give you a blurb:
" I feel the movie is simple but endearing. It is trying SOOOO hard to be cool,
and I have to give it props. I'll watch it and laugh at it over and over again.
I think of it like the Happening: just filled with stupid and bad acting and terrible plot
and awful CGI, but so so SO much fun to watch."
Yeah, I loved that terrible movie. If it wasn't so competently made from just a cinematography sense, I would definitely consider it nanar. It is just a little too good to be that bad. And none of that is "bad" in any sense. So Dawn looked pretty swell to me! You got the apes on horseback in some posters, with guns! It continues the story into a truly interesting part, the part where the planet is in transition. I was very excited to go, and on Saturday at midnight finally got to see it. And ...
Wait for it.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a better movie than Rise. It is better plotted, it makes more sense, and the technical abilities are clearly improved. Some of the characters get a lot more emphasis, and there are a few shots that are truly just some of the best most thrilling stuff I've seen in theatres in quite some time. Also, the dialogue is completely awful, the script is completely lackluster, and every single actor sleepwalks through the movie until they turn evil.
Yeah, I didn't care for this one. It is a better movie, no doubts about it. But I actually thought it was really a WORSE movie because I didn't enjoy myself. There was one character that interested me in the whole film, and that was the villain. Even the over-hyped Andy Serkis' Caesar was just dull. Though not as dull as his Woobie son, Blue-Eyes.
Because I refuse to put spoilers, I cannot really talk in details about a lot of things, but there were a LOT of moments where the film was primed to do something interesting. And it instead chose to not be interesting, and just be standard. And that's ultimately what I feel about the film. It is a perfectly fine, middle of the road film, that I basically did not enjoy. There was not enough of the fun apes fighting or riding on horses stuff, not enough camp to be enjoyable. There was a lot of really terrible things, and while there were bits I enjoyed, almost every one of them was super short and then followed by a very long and boring sequence.
Also, I should point out, the apes are the protagonists in this. The humans are completely the bad guys. I do not care how much you pretend like these humans are good guys or justified, they aren't. The apes are completely right in every single situation where the two races have to bump up against each other.
OH! And sign language doesn't work when you sign to someone who isn't looking at you. That happens CONSTANTLY. I don't care how cool of a pose your CGI ape makes, sign language to the camera does not let anyone beside or behind you see what you are doing.
ALSO! Characters should notice other people even if they aren't onscreen when they are not obscured by anything in this movie. I HATE when characters cannot see things because the audience can't.
DOUBLE ALSO! There is a thing called "pay off." If you set something up, pay it off. Don't do a shot of a rocket launcher, and then have not a single rocket launcher be shot. Don't do a big uplifting moment for a character, only for that character to continue to do nothing of worth.
TRIPLE ALSO! If you are a female in this film, regardless of species, the movie hates you. There are three women in this movie that are actual characters, and two of them don't have names, and the other is Felecity who is incredibly miscast. Hell, every human is hilariously miscast. They took the casting budget, gave a little to Gary Oldman to just be Commissioner Gordon again, and spent the rest on the CGI. Also, can I just say Gary Oldman is about the most overrated actor in film today ... other than Andy Serkis.
QUADRUPLE ALSO! The movie is constantly raining. Are they trying to say that once humans are mostly killed off that San Francisco becomes a rain forest? Because it is raining in a forest? AND 5x 5x 5x 5x 5x ALSO! If it is raining in your CGI shots on the apes that are in the water, have some daggum practical rain on the humans that are right next to them! AND ANOTHER THING, SCIENCE FICTION IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALLEGORY, SAYING SOMETHING WE CAN TAKE AND LEARN FROM, NOT JUST A BORING STORY THAT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING! AND ANOTHER THING ---
Combo breaker. Thanks.
Yeah, ok, I'm wasting time. This movie is technically better than Rise, but it is not as entertaining. Save your money for a rent, don't go to theaters. That's my verdict, anyway.
Grade: C-
Also, I've been putting this at the bottom of all my reviews last week. And I got zero questions. Come on people, I can see how many of you looked at these, I know at least ONE of you had to have seen this at the bottom. I can't do an Ask Me Anything if you guys don't, well, ask me anything. So help me out, leave some questions in my ask box on Tumblr or in the comments here or on facebook or to my email or something. Let's get this thing going, we only got half a month to do this thing! WOOOOO!
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