Super Frat

Full disclosure, I did not see the previous movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes with James Franco.  Also, I’m a big fan of the original movies.  (Well, specifically, the first movie, but the others have their charm.)  Take my review with a grain of salt.

Once again, Hollywood takes a franchise and reboots it.  The visuals in Dawn are pretty spectacular.  Andy Serkis is amazing and the story isn’t all that bad.  Everything pretty much comes together and it’s not a bad movie per se—

It’s just that, you already know what’s going to happen.

The great thing about the original Planet of the Apes was that it was a total surprise.  During an era when they were making space movies and sci-fi movies left and right—  You watch the original movie and it’s great for what it is.  It uses the effects and sets of the time period for maximum impact.

Contrast that with Dawn.  It’s plot is really just a typical TV movie.  Two sides bent on war and the people in the middle that try and stop it.  This is why I hate remakes.  It’s a lose-lose situation.  Either the movie goes in a new direction (in which case, why not make a completely new movie) or it goes in the same direction and didn’t we already know that?  There’s just no surprise here.  The effects could be used for something much more ambitious.

Sure the effects are great to watch, but there are a million things like that you can watch.  They aren’t movies.  Movies are supposed to be a great amalgamation of visuals, sound, story and plot.  What chance do you have to surprise anyone when you know the ending already?  If it ended peacefully, then it would be boring and you couldn’t do the next movie.  You’d have to do something different with the humans and apes living together.

This is just beating a dead horse.  No matter how well you beat the horse, it’s still dead.  And what used to be a Twilight Zone episode wrapped up in 30 minutes, is now a 90 minute Hollywood spectacular.  All this talent and money could’ve been spent creating a new franchise.  Anything else.  Even if it was just marmosets rising to take over the Earth or talking rocks or aliens that look like chocolate bars—  It still doesn’t beat the first original movie because the surprise is already over.  You’ll never beat this final, iconic scene.

That surprise, the first time you see it, leaves you stunned.  They never even should’ve made the original sequels.  They’re all terrible in my view.  But Hollywood wants to squeeze another dollar out of something, you can’t stop it.  I feel I wasted my money on Dawn.  It will only encourage them to make more remakes and reboots like The Equalizer, The Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and on and on.  Some stories just should end.  Planet of the Apes was one of those stories.

I give this movie no rating.  I’m not interesting in encouraging anyone to see it.