Just got back from seeing it, and man does this blow Age of Extinction out of the water. Apes dual wielding machine guns and going apeshit was something.
Also Andy Serkis as Caesar nails it. You really care for his character and see the emotions peering out from his eyes.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
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generator_g1
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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
My FLICKR page! 
Remember, people, commas are your friends. Love them, embrace them, cherish them, and for crying out loud, USE them.
Remember, people, commas are your friends. Love them, embrace them, cherish them, and for crying out loud, USE them.
Re: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
I also just came from seeing it, and it was *not* a very good movie, for many many reasons and I really cant recommed it. Hardly a worthy successor to Rise. Neither Apes on horseback with dual MG's, or even Caesars mournful(CG) eyes could save it. Even paid extra for the 3D. The director they picked is clearly at fault,the writing, flat, under-used, pointless characters,slow, uneven pacing, why was Kerri-Russel in this again? Gary Oldman even? What makes Caesar think that Malcolm was such a 'good' man anyhow? While he wasnt a 'bad' guy as such, but in point of fact, he was the root cause of most of Caesars problems presented in the movie. Maurices ham-fisted, hokey 'bonding' with Malcolm's kid? Where did that come from?
I didnt see much reaction from the rest of the audience either , except for one small part. At a guess, I am going to assume(most of them), didnt find it very engaging either.
My suggestion, wait for it to hit basic cable.
I didnt see much reaction from the rest of the audience either , except for one small part. At a guess, I am going to assume(most of them), didnt find it very engaging either.
My suggestion, wait for it to hit basic cable.
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amigocabal
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Re: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
Huh, I fail to see how Malcolm was the root cause of Caesar's problems in the movie.Traveller wrote:I also just came from seeing it, and it was *not* a very good movie, for many many reasons and I really cant recommed it. Hardly a worthy successor to Rise. Neither Apes on horseback with dual MG's, or even Caesars mournful(CG) eyes could save it. Even paid extra for the 3D. The director they picked is clearly at fault,the writing, flat, under-used, pointless characters,slow, uneven pacing, why was Kerri-Russel in this again? Gary Oldman even? What makes Caesar think that Malcolm was such a 'good' man anyhow? While he wasnt a 'bad' guy as such, but in point of fact, he was the root cause of most of Caesars problems presented in the movie. Maurices ham-fisted, hokey 'bonding' with Malcolm's kid? Where did that come from?
I didnt see much reaction from the rest of the audience either , except for one small part. At a guess, I am going to assume(most of them), didnt find it very engaging either.
My suggestion, wait for it to hit basic cable.
Spoiler
Re: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
Got back from a matinée showing and greatly enjoyed it. I'd put it on par with Rise but definitely wouldn't say it exceeds it. I found Dawn was less flawed than Rise, but also had fewer truly memorable, emotional moments like Caesar's first climb in the park, or sketching the chalk drawing of his window on the wall of his cell. I came away from it thinking the same thing I did with X-Men: Days of Future Past: I went in hoping to see nerdy, action-packed craziness, but in the end it's the quieter, more emotional scenes will stick with me much more. In fact I was quite disappointed with the ape-human confrontation. I was looking forward to seeing the apes emerge victorious using their superior strength, agility and the humans underestimating their great intelligence, but there is almost none of that. We don't see the apes training at all to take the settlement despite most of the apes picking up firearms for what is likely the first time. Despite seeing apes manage to infiltrate the settlement unseen, we don't see any apes approach from the rooftops or anything, and instead are treated to the apes zerg rushing the barricade on horseback. And no scene of an ape firing a gun with his opposable thumbs, or even shooting while hanging by his feet? Totally missed opportunity. Perhaps some of this is to contrast with Caesar's leadership in the first movie and how Spoiler
The ape characters are still terrific, even though it's a bit disappointing that it's almost a total boys club. Caesar has become one of my favorite science fiction characters and it's great to see Andy Serkis getting top billing. The part of the film that had me closest to tears was subtle enough to arguably be unintentional Spoiler
It may sound like the only thing the movie has going for it are the strong ape character dynamics, which is true to an extent, but seriously, those parts are really fucking good and more than carry the movie. I'm certainly looking forward to the next one, even though the ending seems to indicate it will be more of the same.
but I still feel like the movie didn't adequately deliver on the concept of a human conflict with super-intelligent apes.
The ape characters are still terrific, even though it's a bit disappointing that it's almost a total boys club. Caesar has become one of my favorite science fiction characters and it's great to see Andy Serkis getting top billing. The part of the film that had me closest to tears was subtle enough to arguably be unintentional Spoiler
There's much less to be said of the human characters. Gary Oldman is surprisingly underutilized. Despite his prevalence in the trailers, I feel like he was in barely ten minutes of the movie. I've heard a lot of people say James Franco was bland in the first film, but I would put him above any of the characters in Dawn, and I was hugely invested in his father-son relationship with Caesar. There's also nothing to match John Lithgow's performance.
It may sound like the only thing the movie has going for it are the strong ape character dynamics, which is true to an extent, but seriously, those parts are really fucking good and more than carry the movie. I'm certainly looking forward to the next one, even though the ending seems to indicate it will be more of the same.
Re: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Spoilers)
Well, I saw this on Saturday and I completely agree with Traveller - very disappointed with it.
I liked:
The apes were beautifully played. I loved the bowing and hold up the hand for forgiveness move - exactly how apes behave in the wild.
Some of the early scenes between Caesar and Kobah were nicely done. You could feel the internal conflict in Kobah's mind between his loyalty to Caesar and his hatred of humans. You could sympathise with his character a lot.
I disliked...where to start. OK Major plotholes:
The biggest was to do with the power. We were constantly told that the only chance of survival for the SF colony was to get in touch with other colonies. When the dam started working, they instantly got on the wires and managed to contact the military. However, they ALREADY HAD POWER through gasoline. If it was that important, they could easily have hooked up a car engine to run the radio transmitters.
Another was the armoury. They’ve been there for several years and ONLY JUST REALISED there was a huge arsenal on their doorstep. Really? Not only that, they didn’t even bother to guard it despite knowing that the apes knew exactly where the colony was and would likely be keeping them under surveillance.
Weak characters
So many of the characters were completely two-dimensional and simply disappeared when no longer required. For example, what happened to the other people in the dam party when Kobah shot Caesar? The family trio hid; the baddy got stomped, but the other two were just not seen again. It wasn’t until the film ended I realised this – these two were in a significant amount of the film, but we knew nothing about them.
Even the boy and the woman were written very thinly, considering they were main people in the plot. The boy – oh he draws and…”has seen things no boy should see” (what a hokey line that was) but…well that’s it. The woman – a doctor, can’t get close to her stepson. Let’s introduce a dead daughter from nowhere, so that the son can say he’s sorry about that - which somehow resolves their relationship…so the dead daughter is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.
The head of the colony – yes, you could to some extent justify his actions as he is responsible for the wellbeing of the colony and has to put them first. But there was no attempt to do anything other than make him a two-dimensional character who goes from “the colony is my first responsibility” to “RAH, RAH, KILL ALL THE APES” without trying to show the hard decisions he would have to make in real life.
Kobah – having enjoyed the initial interactions, again he went from “ape with an abused childhood” to “psychotic leader” far, far too easily. He hates humans because they torture apes, then is happy to throw an ape to his death at the slightest provocation. It made for a far less interesting baddy than one who believes he is behaving in a way that is regrettable but necessary.
Weak storyline
I’ve already mentioned the two-dimensional baddies. They made the film far less interesting than it could have been. Instead of a thoughtful movie, we got inter-species cowboys and Indians.
The apes being held in the bus – all chained up, but broke the chains quite easily when needed.
Why the fuck was Kobah and his gang up the top of that tower (apart from it being a good place for the fight)? So far up that they couldn’t monitor what was going on at all.
The colony had been there for many years but had done nothing with the place – this is simply not what humans would do. They would find ways of making the place more habitable. There’d be gardens, they’d decorate their homes to at least some degree – it looked like they’d stumbled across the place last week. No attempt to add any colour to their existence.
Caesar’s fight at the end – he could barely climb the tower due to his injuries and was then swinging around like goodun as soon as the fight started.
Taken in isolation, I could have accepted any of these and enjoyed the film – but there were just so many jarring notes (I have many more than I've mentioned above) that I just got bored with the whole thing.
I liked:
The apes were beautifully played. I loved the bowing and hold up the hand for forgiveness move - exactly how apes behave in the wild.
Some of the early scenes between Caesar and Kobah were nicely done. You could feel the internal conflict in Kobah's mind between his loyalty to Caesar and his hatred of humans. You could sympathise with his character a lot.
I disliked...where to start. OK Major plotholes:
The biggest was to do with the power. We were constantly told that the only chance of survival for the SF colony was to get in touch with other colonies. When the dam started working, they instantly got on the wires and managed to contact the military. However, they ALREADY HAD POWER through gasoline. If it was that important, they could easily have hooked up a car engine to run the radio transmitters.
Another was the armoury. They’ve been there for several years and ONLY JUST REALISED there was a huge arsenal on their doorstep. Really? Not only that, they didn’t even bother to guard it despite knowing that the apes knew exactly where the colony was and would likely be keeping them under surveillance.
Weak characters
So many of the characters were completely two-dimensional and simply disappeared when no longer required. For example, what happened to the other people in the dam party when Kobah shot Caesar? The family trio hid; the baddy got stomped, but the other two were just not seen again. It wasn’t until the film ended I realised this – these two were in a significant amount of the film, but we knew nothing about them.
Even the boy and the woman were written very thinly, considering they were main people in the plot. The boy – oh he draws and…”has seen things no boy should see” (what a hokey line that was) but…well that’s it. The woman – a doctor, can’t get close to her stepson. Let’s introduce a dead daughter from nowhere, so that the son can say he’s sorry about that - which somehow resolves their relationship…so the dead daughter is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.
The head of the colony – yes, you could to some extent justify his actions as he is responsible for the wellbeing of the colony and has to put them first. But there was no attempt to do anything other than make him a two-dimensional character who goes from “the colony is my first responsibility” to “RAH, RAH, KILL ALL THE APES” without trying to show the hard decisions he would have to make in real life.
Kobah – having enjoyed the initial interactions, again he went from “ape with an abused childhood” to “psychotic leader” far, far too easily. He hates humans because they torture apes, then is happy to throw an ape to his death at the slightest provocation. It made for a far less interesting baddy than one who believes he is behaving in a way that is regrettable but necessary.
Weak storyline
I’ve already mentioned the two-dimensional baddies. They made the film far less interesting than it could have been. Instead of a thoughtful movie, we got inter-species cowboys and Indians.
The apes being held in the bus – all chained up, but broke the chains quite easily when needed.
Why the fuck was Kobah and his gang up the top of that tower (apart from it being a good place for the fight)? So far up that they couldn’t monitor what was going on at all.
The colony had been there for many years but had done nothing with the place – this is simply not what humans would do. They would find ways of making the place more habitable. There’d be gardens, they’d decorate their homes to at least some degree – it looked like they’d stumbled across the place last week. No attempt to add any colour to their existence.
Caesar’s fight at the end – he could barely climb the tower due to his injuries and was then swinging around like goodun as soon as the fight started.
Taken in isolation, I could have accepted any of these and enjoyed the film – but there were just so many jarring notes (I have many more than I've mentioned above) that I just got bored with the whole thing.
What is WRONG with you people