Thoughts on "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"?

[Howl Pendragon]

I'm gonna try not to let the post-movie hype blind me into claiming this to be the movie of the year already, but so far it is the smartest movie I've seen this year, and that's exactly what I expected from it. Not a single dull moment throughout the movie, though its probably hard to be bored by the subject material alone. This film is even more thought-provoking than the first. I couldn't help but be reminded of Orwell's Animal Farm during the second half of the film.

Plus I felt like it had a great balance between action and expositional scenes. I know they aren't exactly related genres, but those who were disappointed by Godzilla's lack of action scenes (I wasn't) will be very pleased with this movie.

Only had a couple very negligible gripes with the story.

Spoiler

I guess I can't fully blame the writers for this, but almost right from the start it was hard not to predict that Koba was going to have to be harshly dealt with by the end of the movie (same goes for the asshole human). His behavior was a bit too erratic not to predict that. Though they did do a good job at making me slightly second-guess myself when he asked for Caesar's forgiveness after their first brawl.

The other one is Malcolm coincidentally bringing Caesar straight to his old home after he was shot. I mean, come on. Out of the entire city (or the chunks that weren't overrun by warring apes) they just happened to choose that one? It didn't seem like Caesar needed a reminder of how kind humans are capable of being so it didn't feel entirely necessary to take him back there. But it isn't exactly story-breaking either, plus cute scene of baby Caesar so, whatever =P

Other than those minor details it doesn't seem to have too many moments of reality-suspension or other ridiculousness. Other than the talking chimps that is

Has anyone else seen this or planning on it?

 

[Dan Oravasaari]

Spoilers:
I just came back from seeing it. I thought it was a good movie, but I was slightly annoyed at how it used stupid tropes to drive the plot forward. Having your hair brained soldier almost start a war, and then bring him along again for a sensitive discussion into enemy territory armed? Really? At that point I was rooting for the Apes to take over.

 

[Jacky]

I'm having flashbacks of all those planet of the apes movies from the days of old. How my grandpa and uncles would make me watch some would drive me insane.

 

[Howl Pendragon]

.

I'm guessing you saw that coming too

I didn't think about that though, good point. He's supposed to be one of his close friends but

MINOR SPOILER: he should have been smart enough to take his volatile temper into account.

I'm having flashbacks of all those planet of the apes movies from the days of old. How my grandpa and uncles would make me watch some would drive me insane.

I have to get around to watching those. Right after I make it through the last 10 Godzilla films I need to watch x_x

 

[Jacky]

I'm guessing you saw that coming too

I didn't think about that though, good point. He's supposed to be one of his close friends but

MINOR SPOILER: he should have been smart enough to take his volatile temper into account.



I have to get around to watching those. Right after I make it through the last 10 Godzilla films I need to watch x_x

At least the godzilla movies were entertaining.