Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 1

Bridging the 10-year gap between the RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES films, fans will bear witness to the fall of humanity and the rise of Caesar’s civilization. While the apes of the world have yet to advance as a species, Caesar must find a way to unify in them to one cause. On the other side of the country, Malcom must venture into the decaying Americas with his family to find a cure for the plague slowly killing his wife, Rita. World powers will shift as civilizations collapse and rise.

A great tie-in to the movie, if you’ve seen it.  If you’ve never seen the movie, you might be a little lost as to what is actually going on.  Taking place between the two newest Apes movies, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes issue 1 helps to fill in what happened after the events of Rise.  Survival stories seem to be the thing lately and this one’s no exception, just replace the zombies with intelligent apes.  This series follows Malcom as he tries to find some form of safety for his family.  I take it, from the art stylings of Dan McDaid, that Malcom is supposed to be the main James Franco character.  As someone who’s never seen the movies, this didn’t really do anything for me.  I mean, if you’ve read one survival story, you’ve read them all.  The only thing that would make this issue and the whole series for that matter, even a little appealing is if you’ve seen the movies.  Aside from the lack of reference, the issue gets a bit confusing at times.  For instance, when the apes are communicating amongst themselves, they have two different word balloons.  Are these supposed to be for two different types of communication?  And there’s no real explanation as to what this virus is that Malcom’s wife has and what it’s actually doing.  I really can’t recommend this series to any newcomers.  If anything, go check out the movies first before grabbing this one.  It will just be a confusing read otherwise.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes issue 1 really only benefits followers of the franchise.  It’s not real friendly to new readers and the story just isn’t compelling enough to keep me interested.  So, I guess my point is, go see the movies before you even think of picking this one up.  I mean there isn’t even any ape fights to draw people in.  Ultimately the choice is up to you, but as for myself, I think I’ll be stopping here until I catch the movie.  For more info on where to find this issue, visit the Boom! Studios website, or the Boom! Studios Facebook page.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

In DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES we get a fairly normal apocalyptic premise where a disease has wiped out everyone only some people seem to be immune to it and their kids etc. So they are left to rebuild and try and fix all the chaos that occurred while their friends, family and loved ones all went freakin ballistic and turned into jerks that jack up every store, street light, abandon house in an attempt to “survive”. Perfect! Great set up and they are ready to go right? No, no, they are not. There is a family of talking apes over the bridge minding their own business and we have to go mess their lives up. That is the way of the survivor or at least some of the human leaders in this movie.

An older wiser Cesar (leader of the apes) is now faced with the dilemma of who to trust and I won’t give it away, but given what happened in the first one, you were kinda hoping this individual learned something. Wonderfully flirting with the real life questions of trust, misunderstanding and just flat out what happens when jerks decide to be jerks, this flick is nothing short of spectacular. On just about every level imaginable we have a treat here which tops the first film (I loved the first film which came in at #7 on my TOP 10 for 2011).

There is a part of the movie where a bunch of stuff is on fire and you would think the object jumping through the fire would catch on fire. It doesn’t. Normally excusable in a full blown action flick, a movie this serious and heartfelt probably shouldn’t have this scene and it definitely stands out. Strong points.

Holy cow, the acting. We hate the jerks in this, we love the character, we love the balance between both sides. Jason Clarke (ZERO DARK THIRTY) as Malcolm is superb and they wisely casted Keri Russell who helps in capturing the compassionate side of the humans this film needed to succeed with brilliance. We also get an outstanding performance from Gary Oldman, but one of the secondary characters was probably my favorite. Kodi Smit-McPhee (Alexander) is the parallel character to Cesar’s son and I am telling you now, this dude is and will remain a huge star either continuing he voice acting like in PARANORMAN or on screen like in LET ME IN. If you are a fan of the PLANET OF THE APES series in general you can’t help but love this EPIC reboot. I give this movie a 7 out of 7.

Rating Definition : SPECTACULAR GENIUS THAT MAKES OTHER GENIUS’s THINK THEY ARE UN-CREATIVE, this is a movie that if you skip it will actually lesson your life span and make your skin dry out. Yeah, I am serious. These films end up on the scale of epic-ness that even giving it a 7 out of 7 seems like a small number. It should be more like an 8 out of 7 sending it straight into the arena of mathematical impossibilities!!!!!!