With "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" performing well, a sequel was quickly greenlit to release three years after. Although it caused the director, Rupert Wyatt, to leave the franchise, the sequel managed to not perform better than the first film critically, but has managed to even become the highest-grossing film of the entire franchise. Taking place ten years after "Rise", Caesar is ruling over his colony of apes outside of San Francisco after a deadly pandemic. The highly-intelligent ape is surprised to learn of a human colony that still thrives inside the ruined city and are actively searching in the forest to power up the city via a dam. While the tension between the two species is high, Caesar and a human negotiator hope to hold some peace as they try to activate the dam. However, Caesar's ally, Koba, still holds a hatred towards human for torturing him years ago and plans to unleash conflict between the two colonies. The story doesn't carry head-smacking plot holes or moments of stupidity compared to the previous film and it does a good job in painting the world, the tribes of apes and humans, and their overall feelings and grudges toward one another that has occurred all these years ago. When it focuses on the tension and eventual conflict between the two species, it's great. However, the story suffers in regards to some of the human characters and their relevance in the narrative. I will go over more in the character section, but it does affect the plot to an extent. The tone is much more mature than the previous film, while also retaining a few moments of humour and drama.
The human characters are sadly what's truly holding the film back from being excellent. Jason Clarke plays Malcom, the co-leader of the human colony and is the one who's trying to befriend Caesar in the hopes to both get power back to the city as well as avoid any future conflict. Malcom is by far the weakest human character in the trilogy simply due to how he acts like a perfect angel in trying to be this all-good hero. If he was replaced by Will from the first film, it would be far more natural and even emotional as it reconnects the chemistry between the two. But I find it so cheesy when Malcom and Caesar talk about how close they were at being friends. Keri Russell as Ellie is extremely pointless and only serves as a plot device due to her status as a nurse, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Malcom's son is also an odd addition because he doesn't even interact with Caesar's son. Aside from the forgettable side characters in their group that simply vanish in the third act, the only human character that I managed to get behind is Gary Oldman's Dreyfus. He's the leader of the human colony that has suffered from losses in the past and is doing his best to just save his people from the apes. Oldman does such a good job at playing this reasonable, but cautious leader of the scared humans. I think the film should have been rewritten to have Dreyfus be the human protagonist while keeping the moral-grey nature of his leadership as the film paints him to be a bad guy at the end for trying to blow up the tower the apes are residing in. You can still have the events play out in a similar fashion, but rather than Malcom and his family be negotiating, it will be Dreyfus as he slowly learns what's going on with the apes and the conflict. Despite the disappointing human characters, the apes are still characterized wonderfully by the motion-capture. Caesar, voiced by Andy Serkis, is now a hardened leader that seems cold to the humans, but does want to give them a chance due to his upbringing with Will. Koba, voiced by Toby Kebbell, is such a great villain. You understand his deep hatred for the humans and how he can never trust them compared to Caesar, but you feel such pain when he and Caesar begin to lose each other's trust in the process and his full dark shift to an aggressor. Blue Eyes and Maurice, performed by Nick Thurston and Karin Konoval, are also good at playing otherwise mute characters that speak a lot from their body language and eyes. So, the apes are still good characters, but the humans are completely wasted due to how bland, unrealistic or underused they are despite otherwise great actors behind them.
Matt Reeves takes over from Wyatt as the director for the final two films of the trilogy and as much as I think he's a great action director, I actually prefer the genre-bending direction that Wyatt offered in "Rise". While I do like how Reeves portrays the settlement the apes construct in the woods, Sans Francisco is frankly uninspired as it's just a bit rusty and some overgrown weeds. I also think that Reeves barely spends any time in the human colony in regards to how their new society works or why we should care for the humans. The sequel spends so much time in the ape colony that the only reason they made for the viewer to care about the humans is that there are women and children there. Again, I really like Reeves as a director, but what made "Rise" so effective was that we care for both the human and ape characters, whereas Reeves spends too much time on the apes and barely on the humans or even creating good characters that are human. The cinematography by Micheal Seresin is really great though with some nice tracking, wide, and establishing shots of the environment and characters. One of the best moments Seresin offers is a 360 wrap-around one take when Koba hijacks a tank as it crashes into the front gate of the human colony alongside the sequence where the camera tracks Malcom frantically evading being seen from the apes in the human colony. The score by Micheal Giacchino is fairly good at drawing out the suspense and intensity of the tone and film, particularly with the action and emotional beats. The visual effects have actually improved from the first film, thanks to the larger budget and the ability to render multiple apes with realistic textures and movements. Obviously, the apes that are motion-captured look better than the non-motion-captured apes, but it's not as jarring as before. Despite the marketing and trailers, there's surprisingly not that much action in the film. There's really only two big action sequences along with smaller skirmishes. The first action sequence is when Koba launches an attack on the human colony. It's so over the top with the various explosions and Koba duel-wielding LMGs while riding a horse, but it's frankly so satisfying to watch and even cheer on the villainous ape. The climax involving the showdown between Caesar and Koba on top of a tower under construction. It's decent, but it's only memorable with the final moment of Caesar dropping Koba with Giacchino's somber score in the background. Overall, Reeves does a great job, even if there are things he can learn from Wyatt's work.
"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is a sequel that manages to improve on the first, but does fail in making the human characters likeable, the minimal world-building, or even making the viewer care for what becomes of the human survivors contrast with the previous film. Still, the story is far tighter than before, the tone carries the suspense and dread of the impending conflict, the human cast do a good job despite their poorly-used characters, the apes are fully characterized and fleshed out thanks to their performers and motion-capture effects, the camerawork by Seresin offers some of the best tracking shots of the 2010's, the score by Giacchino helps add to the drama and intense action, the CGI on the apes adds much needed detail and fluent motion and the few action sequences present are quite memorable in their own right thanks to Reeves's direction. Honestly, if they just rewrote the film to have Dreyfus be the protagonist and just spend a bit more time in the human colony for us to care, this might have been the best film of the trilogy. As is, it's still better than "Rise" thanks to the tighter writing, but it's just barely better.'
Verdict: 8/10. Great, but the human element completely sinks the film from being an all-time classic. Still a strong installment in the franchise.
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