The dawn comes before the rise. That’s how suns work. Trust a 2014 sequel for backward momentum, though. Ten years ago, an origin story stretched two movies, one fantasy novel split three ways, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes spent a couple long hours going nowhere.
Caesar (Andy Serkis) solemnly prepares to lead his community into danger. That’s the beginning, and the end. Previous installments spiraled toward cataclysm, revolution, bloody murder, or a cruel twist of fate. Dawn concludes with Caesar announcing, “War has already begun.” The biggest Apes budget ever buys you a sequel tease.
This pointless movie has an excellent reputation. Dawn rocketed Apes to a yet-unmatched box office stratosphere, breaking $200 million domestically and $700 million globally. The awesome poster helped. See Caesar on a black horse, machine gun held skyward, Golden Gate Bridge sizzling in the distance. All nonsense geography — The stallion’s galloping on water? They’re attacking Sausalito? — but one hell of a pitch. The world burns. The apes ride.
No moment quite like that in the movie, alas. Caesar does lead his cavalry on a slow trot as a show of strength. For “ten winters,” his tribe has lived unbothered in Muir Woods. They’re off the grid and the grid is off. Human pandemic survivors huddle in a San Francisco fortress colony. They need power from a dam in Caesar’s territory. A jumpy dude named Carver (Kirk Acevedo) injures a young chimpanzee. Vengeful bonobo Koba (Toby Kebbell) demands blood for blood. Caesar marches his army to the city with a diplomatic warning: “Do not come back.”
They come back. Malcolm (Jason Clarke) promises peace. His son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) reads comics to sage orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval). Caesar’s newborn baby playfully crawls over Malcolm’s wife Ellie (Keri Russell). Utopia approaches. Then human leader Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) arms up in preparation for a potential simian attack. Koba sees the military maneuvers and decides to strike. When Carver breaks the no-gun rule in the apes’ village, Caesar tells Malcolm, “Human leave now!”
They stay. Caesar’s wife (Judy Greer) is sick from childbirth. Ellie saves her with antibiotics. You’re getting the flavor of Dawn’s progression: leave, return, go, stop. Director Matt Reeves only films with patient awe, and knows how to build tension. But he came up with J. J. Abrams, and they have the same problem: The payoff never pays off. See Cloverfield, Reeves’ 2008 directorial breakthrough, an A-plus tease with a C-plus monster. Here, Caesar’s son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) threatens a dark turn you never believe. Caesar almost dies from an assassin’s bullet, then quickly recovers for a parkour brawl. After a long runtime of whisper-y sorrow, Dawn culminates with a brute-strength fight where Good Guy defeats Bad Guy.
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