Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014) Dir: Matt Reeves
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The sequel to 2011's 'Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' always needed to get darker and go deeper than the original. The franchise made one giant step in the right direction, by anointing Matt Reeves as the man in the director's chair. A small jump in time to fully establish the next stage of the story also made for the perfect opportunity to tell an effective story.
I cannot stress enough how much I adore the visuals in this film. The lighting, framing and range of shots were all very typical of Matt Reeves' style - which should be enough to tell you that the film looked absolutely breathtaking at times.
The film brilliantly tackled questions and themes of morality, humanity, violence, cooperation, forgiveness and family in a variety of ways - not only through the human characters, but the ape ones too. In fact, the way the apes were presented was near perfect, in my view.
The emotions, personalities and micro-expressions of the ape characters were utterly magnificent. It was a testament, in many respects, to the brilliant work of the motion capture team on the film - not to mention the actors who were involved in that side of the filming. On that, the CGI for those motion capture was far exceeding that of three years earlier.
The narrative is leagues ahead of its predecessor's. It has so much more depth, story continuity and character development than before. It really goes to show what a great director and a more thought-out screenplay can do. I like the first film, but I love this second one.
Andy Serkis should have won an Oscar for this performance. I genuinely cannot find a single fault in his insanely genuine, profound and multilayered display. I think this should be considered one of the great acting performances of the 2010s, and I will gladly die on that horse.
Jason Clarke is perhaps not the man you would expect to be a sturdy front man for humanity, but I thought he did a pretty commendable job. I can't remember enjoying him as much in any of the other performances I've seen of his. I thought he was very sincere, and worked well with both Serkis and Russell.
Gary Oldman deserved a little more screentime honestly - that may be one of the only nitpicks I have with the film. He was pretty damn good in his role, and I think he made for intriguing viewing, with how he presented his character's perspective.
Toby Kebbell had a phenomenal display in one of the film's major motion capture roles. Thanks to a combination of phenomenal facial animations and some on-point body language, Kebbell was able to present a very effective and scary character.
Keri Russell was rather solid in her key supporting role. I think she had good chemistry with Clarke, and capitalised on that in some quieter scenes. The other standout in the supporting cast was Nick Thurston, who worked as one of the other key ape characters. I thought he did some very subtle work that paid off hugely in the development of his character.
Beyond those already mentioned, I think the likes of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirk Acevedo, Jon Eyez, Karin Konoval and Terry Notary - some of which in motion capture roles - all did decent jobs in their respective supporting roles.
Overall, I don't think anything better could have happened to this new Planet Of The Apes franchise than Matt Reeves. He brought the depth and the darkness that the films needed, and provided a huge amount of narrative juice to go along with that. This is one of my favourite films ever, and I can't believe it took me this long to rewatch it.
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