Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Matt Reeves/Starring: Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and Judy Greer

Director Matt Reeves, of Cloverfield fame, captains the latest Planet of the Apes installment, which is set some years in the future. A monkey virus has wiped out a chunk of the world population while the self-emancipated apes from Rise of the Planet of the Apes thrive and multiply.

We see the ape community in their arboreal village, somewhere outside San Francisco, hunting as a pack and establishing their species quite nicely. Caesar (Andy Serkis), the ape's charismatic leader, lives in his own tree condo with his wife Cornelia (Judy Greer) and son. The familial unit has added a baby brother, so all seems well.

Though the apes live harmoniously in the forest, human struggle to survive in the virus-ravaged city. The uneasy peace that exists between the species is upheld more by a lack of contact than a negotiated pact.

The state of relations becomes complicated when the apes happen upon humans in the forest, which rouses the hairier primates into a frenzy. Wary of the humans, Caesar forcefully commands them to "Go," which reveals tha ape's aptitude for human speech. Frightened, the humans return to the city of San Francisco, which has been largely reclaimed by nature; with vines choking nearly every surface. Living without power, the humans hatch a plan to reboot it, which involves returning to the ape-infested, ape-controlled forest to locate the generator.

Meanwhile, a rogue ape named Koba, who despises the humans, hatches a plan of his own to depose Caesar and launch an assault on the humans. Koba finds a pretext, which involves shooting Caesar with a gun recently-acquired from the humans then strategically abandoning it. When the apes look for the culprit, they see the gun and assume the humans are the aggressors. Believing Caesar to be dead after the fall from his tree, the apes follow Koba as they lay seige to the city. They quickly gain ingress, eliminating every human they find.

The humans are led by Malcolm, Caesar's counterpart, who is eager to maintain peace at all costs though he finds the humans almost inevitably drawn into an armed conflict with the apes.

Violence and death ensue as Koba and the apes overwhelm the humans, driving them further into the city's recesses. What follows is not just a humans vs apes conflict but Caesar's struggle to restore his leadership

I could never understand the appeal of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which boasted impressive ape CGI but was really Hollywood's ploy to establish a franchise that movie-execs won't let die. The Charlton Heston movie spawned several film iterations and a 70s' T.V. series, but somehow Hollywood feels we need more. Tim Burton's wretched re-make of the original should have discouraged any further plans for resurrection but here we are again. Rise wasn't bad but left me yawning, just as Dawn has.

Though Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has something to say about something, I'm hard-pressed to know what the hell it is. In one scene Caesar, upon reflection, realizes the apes and humans have much in common. I thought, is this all you want to convey? Does this serve as the film's pearly-wisdom? And did it take 130 minutes of screentime and my twelve bucks to articulate that?

The performances are fine and the CGI-rendered simians are done well, but there is nary a plot development that can't be anticipated within the first 15 minutes. I thought San Francisco looked particularly good as a re-imagined nature-reclamation, but I've grown fatigued with post-apocalyptic, on-screen depictions of roadways clogged with cars and urban, structural atrophy. If Hollywood summer films aren't busy visiting Biblical destruction on cities, they're busy showing us New York or Paris or San Francisco as de-populated, decayed, concrete mausoleums.

Ten years ago, the now classic Napoleon Dynamite was released late Summer with a budget of $400,000. It was hilarious, offbeat, original and unforgettable with now-iconic characters. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has an Olympian budget of $170 million and apart from some cool visuals, has little else to recommend it. Somehow Hollywood never learns the crucial lessons. I don't know if anyone has ever crunched the numbers, but what the industry spends on Summer blockbusters must exceed the budgets of some third-world nations.

I'm fine with apes taking over. If they ever wrest control of the movie studios from the dull-witted committees overseeing productions, we might finally have a Planet of the Apes story I might be eager to see.

I propose the next film--already in pre-production--be titled After-Dawn but Just Before Mid-Morning and Noon Though Late-Afternoon Isn't Out of Question of the Planet of The Apes.
Yeah, I might pay to see that.