A Grade-A bridge-burner (Kirk Acevedo), in what he means as a sarcastic remark, helpfully self-identifies as the jerk of the group (though he uses a stronger word).
It’s also about how much harder it is to build bridges than to burn them, and how maddeningly easy it can be for those given to the latter to undo the work of those struggling to achieve the former.īridge-builders on the human side include Malcolm (Jason Clarke), a widowed father whose teenage son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) shares his natural immunity to the “simian flu” that wiped out most of humanity over the last 10 years, and Ellie (Keri Russell), a former Centers of Disease Control nurse.
Indeed, in my screening, there was scattered laughter and applause at horrifyingly inappropriate moments from a handful of viewers who apparently wanted more of what the earlier film offered.īut the reality is that the blockbuster triumph of Rise has been replaced in Dawn with a powerful sense of tragedy and loss, rooted in real moral fury at the ignoble impulses and attitudes that sabotage human well-being.ĭawn is about hostility versus empathy, cooperation versus belligerence, suspicion and fear versus daring to trust. It is certainly possible to watch both Rise and Dawn (don’t try to make sequential sense of the inaugural title language) in this same spirit of nihilistic fantasy, if you’ve a mind to. In my 2011 review, I suggested the term “posthuman porn” for this kind of nihilistic fantasizing. On the contrary, there was a troubling note of complacent blockbuster uplift as the rise of the apes dovetailed with the decline of man - a nihilistic enthusiasm for the prospect of a post-human future. It wasn’t even, like the pandemic thriller Contagion, about the practical side of what should or shouldn’t be done in such a crisis. Laboring under the plot mechanics of moving toward a world dominated by intelligent apes rather than humans - an intelligence-boosting drug intended to cure dementia, a deadly virus decimating human populations - it was all about the how, and not really about the why, or what it would reveal about us, or why it would matter. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a popcorn pre-apocalypse that devoted most of its brain power to mundane questions of sci-fi plausibility, a bit to character drama and virtually none to subtext or theme. Toby Kebbell as Koba, a ruthless ape and the main antagonist who believes Caesar is too affectionate towards humans.Nothing in the well-made but prosaic 2011 reboot hinted at the power of this film, a worthy successor to the best of the original films, with their cautionary parables about man’s inhumanity to man set in a topsy-turvy Twilight Zone world of intelligent apes and animal-like humans. Kodi Smit-McPhee as Alexander, Malcolm's teenage son Gary Oldman as Dreyfus, the leader of the surviving humans who wants to kill all the apes and get "revenge" for the deaths of his two sons to the virus. Jason Clarke as Malcolm, a survivor of the ALZ-113 virus who, along with a small group of other survivors, forms a strong bond with the apes and Caesar. 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. It is the eighth film in the franchise.Ī 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. It is the sequel to the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which began 20th Century Fox's reboot of the original Planet of the Apes series. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an American science fiction film directed by Matt Reeves and starring Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Keri Russell.