Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

This review may contain spoilers!

This film was a special effects epic with some brilliant themes and a brilliant story about the apes culture, if only the humans hadn't been in it. I would give Dawn of the Planet of the Apes a 7/10.

This film's motion capture and CGI effects are a testament to what the film industry can really achieve these days, I was absolutely in awe of what I was watching and how much effort it must have taken to make the film itself. I was also very impressed with how the film expanded upon the storyline about the apes, in Rise we had started to see apes forming a culture but now it was really in full swing and furthermore the apes being no different than us ultimately? That was just plain great writing.

Andy Serkis, who played Caesar, did a brilliant job as the leader of the apes; Serkis is a motion capture veteran and it really shows in the performance he gives. Kirk Acevedo, who played Carver, is one of the few live action performers I can credit as being enjoyable to watch; his blind hatred for the apes was very climatic and kept the plot on a steady course. Nick Thurston, who played Blue Eyes, did a great job in creating the father/son dynamic between his character and Caesar. Karin Konoval, who played Maurice, had one of the truly loveable characters of the film and I grew quite attached to this particular character because of that performance.

However the actor who did the best job in this film was Toby Kebbell, who played Koba. It was a whole new intelligent ape in that he was loyal, and simpering, but with so much venom and hatred in him. He was devious and and bloodthirsty and had this cunning that showed the dark andtwisted side of having a sentient mind. A truly inspired performance and one of the best motion capture performances that I've seen this year.

The entire film suffers majorly in it's human element, the humans have this role of being a problem for the apes and yet there is very little backstory to the humans; in fact the film needs the humans but it never really develops them. Also the music for this felt like the 60s-70s music from when it was originally made only revamped; it was awfully generic and did not pay off at all.

Jason Clarke, who played Malcolm, felt very underwhelming in a leading role and really did not lead the action all that well. Gary Oldman, who played Dreyfus, was an extreme waste of talent as he had roughly four scenes in the entire film; I was confused as to whether he was meant to be a protagonist or an antagonist as well. Keri Russell, who played Ellie, had very little presence and seemed to exist as some base need to have a female character within the film that wasn't an ape. Kodi Smit-McPhee, who played Alexander, was alousy son figure and connected with none of his fellow cast very well.