Dawn of the Plane of the Apes

10 years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is where Dawn of the Planet of the Apes starts.

Caesar and his jolly band of intelligent apes have established a city/ commune and even a type of monarchy. They are all happy.

Meanwhile the humans are all dead from the simian flu that was released at the end of the last movie. That is until a group shows up in the forest and of course shoots a wandering chimp out of fear. Now the apes know the humans are still around and the humans know the apes have numbers and can talk. What happens next is the standard mixed messages that lead to action and explosions.

The crux of the story is that the apes and humans both hate each other. They also both think they are better than the other. Hmmm….sounds vaguely familiar. This leads to the realization that they are more alike than they think, but that is of course learned the hard way.

What kind of hard way? Well an ape coup d’état  is how. Caesar is overthrown and that leads to a violent confrontation with the humans. The main action sequence of the film I wanted to see and it did not disappoint! An ape charge of the light brigade sets off the battle and it just gets crazy from there. Dual machine gun wielding chimps, gorillas pulling wounded out of the line of fire,  Donkey Kong-like oil barrel tossing, lots of explosions/fire and eventually a chimp in a tank cupola firing a pintle mounted machine gun.

The apes win the battle and imprison all the humans they can find. The you get a bit of ape/human resistance which leads up to the climax. The return of Caesar to put a stop to all this violent nonsense in the best way possible: Ape Thunderdome!

The plot is a bit rehashed from like 100 other stories, but it is still a solid plot. There were times I actually cared for those damn dirty C.G.I. apes! Especially, the Orangutan Maurice. He just wants to read books! Leave the poor guy alone! Plus anytime a gorilla hucks an oil drum I couldn’t help but laugh. Who would think chimps with machine guns is great stuff? The action pieces are fun! They do a good job of making you like and dislike the ape/human “villains” too. There was not the homage feel like there was in Rise o’ the Planet o’ Apes, but that was ok. It made it feel like its own film without the need to quasi-pander to people. All of it together was a good bit of alright.

Much like Rise o’ the Planet if the series is going to continue this way, then I eagerly anticipate the next chapter.