So, I just got back from viewing 20th Century Fox's, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and I must say I was blown the living hell away by this movie! Every aspect of this film, for me, was damned near perfection. The characters, both ape and human, the tone, the direction, the visuals; there was so much to love about this film. The one issue I had with it, was that it kinda felt like Battle of the Planet of the Apes set in the modern day... But done a million times better. So, with my overall thoughts on the film out of the way, let's take a look at some of the more intricate aspects of the film...
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
In a film where your pro and antagonist are men of few words, character development for them may seem a little daunting. But the film handles the ape characters in a brilliant way. The use of sign language amongst the apes from early on in the film actually helps to draw you into this new and strange world. The subtitles aren't distracting either, which seems to be something a lot of people really care abut with movies. The film focuses the most around Caesar and his family, by extension, his kingdom of apes. We see he and Koba as brotherly figures from very early on in the film and that is one of the key elements around which the film revolves. Another interesting character dynamic we see is between that of Caesar and his son Blue-Eyes. It's established quite early on in the film that there is a tension between these two characters and it holds up well throughout the movie, especially towrds the end. As you've probably heard from other reviews however, the human characters do get the short end of the stick. They're underdeveloped but not in an unforgivable way, because I found myself still caring about what happened to them throughout the film which isn't a bad sign if you ask me. All in all, despite human characters being put on the backburner, characters that are focused on get developed incredibly well in a way I never thought possible! You really end up hating Koba in this film and you can't help but feel for the tragic hero, Caesar. On a sidenote; Toby Kebbell? Gonna stick out like a sore thumb as the best thing in the FF reboot, mark my words.
TONE
This film is dark from the outset. The film opens with a scene showing the apes hunting Deer and the sequence was terrifically done. The keen-eared sci-fi fan may also have heard the eery chant from 2001: A Space Odyssey playing in the background of this scene. As soon as I heard that music, I thought of 2001's twenty minute "Dawn of man" sequence in which we see apes learn the ways of violence. That single piece of music established this film's tone for me. I immediately knew this film was going to deal with the rising of violence and the end to peace. It was also an incredibly poweful sequence as it made me think, "This is what it must have been like as early hominid apes." You get a real sense of this new world where one species is developing while the others remain in their place. The dark tone holds up throughout the film, especially when focus shifts to Koba and his goals and we see that not all is well in the ape community. The condition of the humans also holds up with the film's dark tone as they practically live in squalor. Overall, the tone of the movie withstands throughout and manages to keep reminding you that this sin't the same world we left in 2011's Rise.
ACTING
Source: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/NovaThoughts/news/?a=104223
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