Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

So the follow on from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the reincarnation of the original Planet of the Apes franchise. We have moved on from the first film 10 winters have passed, humanity has pretty much wiped itself out (not that unrealistic given the current global circumstances) however there are some of us left. The apes have created their own colony, developing education and working together led by Caesar played by Andy Serkis and his wing man Koba played by Toby Kebbell. Everything has been going well for them and queue the re-appearance of human in to their lives.

I must admit the first time I watch the Rise of the Planet of the Apes I wasn’t overly impressed, I felt the story dragged a little however upon second viewing it captured me and I feared it may be the same with this, thankfully this was not the case I immediately took to the characters which were well developed, loved the communication between the apes using sign language to communicate with each other, I felt an immediate connect to the apes. 

The battle between peace and war is conveyed superbly, because of the tension the small moments become so much more emotionally heightened. The writing has obviously been fantastic however the execution by the actors is superb led by Andy Serkis. His powerful and warm performance as Caesar is sensational in my opinion and that’s not to take away from the rest of the cast, he just stands out being the lead character. Gary Oldman also puts in another strong performance and another good performance from Jason Clarke who plays Malcolm the representative of the humans.

Overall it’s an excellent film, it gets to the heart of the matter well, performances are all strong and it really captured me from start to finish. Looking at it from a negative point of view it’s a bit predictable at times and I would love to go back and force them to cut bits out of the trailer as they showed too much but there’s not much new there!

Personally I’m going to give it 9 out of 10. There were rumours over the net about a Marvel style credits scene but it was a bit underwhelming, thankfully it’s after the first section of the credits and not the full 10 minutes of credits.