CAPSULE: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014, Dir. Matt Reeves)

For the second time this year I'm left feeling lukewarm about a blockbuster that audiences are going ape-shit over. Both laden with exceptionally well executed CGI. Both beautifully designed. Both rousingly scored. Both serviceably acted. Both narratively uninteresting. Both displaying an unforgivable paucity of character.

The first was Godzilla. The second is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Matt Reeves' follow up to 2011's excellent Franco-headed franchise re-imagining.

I don't think I've dropped off the blockbuster bandwagon (not that I have ever ridden it entirely comfortably) but I do admit to getting fidgety when everything onscreen is in the service of the spectacle, or worse, as in Reeves' effort, all the film's hard earned character work gets thrown in the corner as soon as he's set the scene for a machine gun toting ape to ride a horse slo-mo style across a flaming set with a crazy look in his eye. Ho-hum.

But I don't want to sit here and pick the lice out of what is a reasonably enjoyable film.

Dawn follows Rise's Caesar as he tries to build a new world for his ape brethren in the wilderness overlooking the bay. There are humans, as the happy go lucky simian-folk soon discover, but they're depleted by the virus that gave the monkeys the gift of the gab. What's more, they've let their world fall into rack and ruin. As you'd expect, humans + guns + sentient apes = storm of shit, with only Caesar and Jason Clarke to try to find a way to damp it down.

Reeves' et al are to be commended for hanging their entire film on a CGI monkey, and in pulling off such a studio-flouting decision so commendably. Caesar as a character is easily the most compelling thing about Dawn. I've heard some Internet commentators making noise to the tune that Hollywoodland's go-to mo-cap specialist Andy Serkis (Gollum, King Kong, Captain Haddock) should be getting an Oscar nom for this and I would entertain the thought but for his mind-numbingly predictable character arc. I know, that's the writing committee's fault but it still detracts from the performance.

It may not be much but at least they gave Serkis something to play with, which is more than I can say for Clarke (generic man-hero), who in turn was better served than Keri Russell (dependable doctor girlfriend), Kodi Smit-McPhee (sensitive artist son) and Gary Oldman (ex-army survival loon). I missed Franco's smile.

Tedious characterisation aside, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is watchable enough. A lot of effort has been put into the epic action sequences and they dazzle as they should. With some real emotional connection I may have even been on the edge of my seat. As it was, I just went along for the sake of the ride. I enjoyed. I got off. I walked out into a storm of people screaming hysterically that it was the best ride of their lives.

Calm your tits.

★★★

Trailer: