Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: How I learned to stop worrying and empathise with monkeys.

Rating: ***

Let me begin this piece by saying that I’m not a fan of the 'Planet of the Apes' franchise. And I don’t like bananas either. But Matt Reeves’s newest ape-flick is full of all the creature comforts that people have come to expect of a summer blockbuster. It’s got smashing CGI; it’s got angry apes, endearing apes, apes that go ape-shit, honourable apes, baby apes and Gary Oldman. But what’s really admirable is how Reeves, and his predecessor Rupert Wyatt, have managed to get audiences to feel for their mo-cap monkeys.

If you peel through the story’s layers, I’m sure you’ll find countless allegories and metaphors. As usual, man has screwed things up. After creating a strain that unleashed a group of smartass primates, human civilisation has descended into chaos. Ten years on, the apes have colonised, expanded and occupied various parts of the world (more precisely, the outskirts of San Francisco). A lot of reviews have compared the film to Israel and Gaza. I doubt that, because although the movie takes itself very seriously, any comparison is probably just a coincidence.

To keep things primitive, each side mirrors the other. Both the apes and the humans have a good guy and a bad guy. The apes have Caesar (the brilliant Andy Serkis), who is an honourable, just and wise leader of the apes and Koba (Toby Kebbell), Caesar’s scarred right-hand, who can’t forgive the humans for mistreating him (read: torturing him in a lab). Malcolm (Jason Clarke) is the human Caesar and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), the human Koba (he lost his family to the flu or something?). The two Homo sapiens lead a band of not-so-merry survivors who are immune to the Simian flu. They need to generate power for their little San Francisco colony and come into conflict with the apes when they attempt to gain access to a hydroelectric dam — which lies deep in banana country.

The sequence of events that follow the conflict are engaging and, at the risk of sounding a little too flattering, quite coherent. Andy Serkis has outdone himself again. He nurtures his Caesar, turning the once rebellious character into a complex and conflicted leader who has realised his extraordinary potential. There’s a great scene in which Koba instigates the usually calm Caesar. And Serkis delivers more anger through Caesar’s eyes than he does through his actions. The man’s really mastered the nuances of his craft. Someone give him a medal or something. Matt Reeves handles an ambitious script quite deftly, without going bananas until the smash-bang, “ooh-ooh-aah-ahh” final act. Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman are just right for their less-than-meaty roles. But Keri Russell is way better in “The Americans”.

The movie is a tad too long, with a running time that apes the duration of most Bollywood movies today. But hey, it’s one of the better picks of this year’s bunch. And I probably enjoyed it even more because I watched it at Notting Hill’s Electric Cinema.

Starring:

Andy Serkis

Jason Clarke

Gary Oldman

Toby Kebbell

Director: Matt Reeves

Writers: Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

(based on characters created by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver)

Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Editors: William Hoy & Stan Salfas

Director of Photography: Michael Seresin

Music: Michael Giacchino