Political Animals

Another open-carry patriot in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

«««  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  Written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, & Amanda Silver. Directed by Matt Reeves. At area theaters.

I’m confused: why is the latest installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise (for convenience, POTA) called the Dawn, when the last one presented the Rise of POTA? Shouldn’t the Dawn always come first? And will future episodes sow similar confusion? Will the Decline of the POTA precede the Day? Will the Gloaming of the Planet of the Apes come before the Noon? And will any of us still be around when Hollywood gets tired of bringing us to the POTA? Probably not, as long as we well-trained primates keep returning the box office for more simian treats.

          Snark aside, Matt Reeves’ apish opus is far from the worst of the series. In fact, it rectifies some of the problems with the past installments. Where Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 Rise was entertaining, it failed to replicate the urgent topicality of the best of the Apes films, the Rod Serling-inspired dread of the perilous delicacy of civilization. While it was visually light-years ahead of Roddy McDowell in a latex mask, it was decades behind in the maturity of its themes. The original Planet of the Apes (1968) was made at a time when grown-ups went to the movies to see stories relevant to adults. The rebooted versions are fundamentally for adolescents—or adults so juvenilized by a diet of adolescent fare they don’t know the difference.

          Reeves’ Dawn at least has a few Serling-esque social anxieties on its mind. The story opens with humanity decimated by a virus unleashed by the anti-Alzheimer’s drug James Franco concocted in Rise. The super-intelligent apes that emerged from that research have built a city-state for themselves in Muir Woods, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. Being super-intelligent, they’ve evolved a cultural style that combines the handy rusticity of Swiss Family Robinson with the comradery of Burning Man. “Ape no kill ape,” the resident sage, an orangutan named Maurice, teaches the kids. He and the apes’ leader, Caesar (Andy Serkis in a motion-capture suit) wonder whether their human creators are finally extinct.

          But people aren’t gone. In fact, if Caesar looked across the bay he’d see one of their settlements—a vaguely medieval keep in the ruins of the big city. Unlike the remnants of humanity in The Matrix, these folks are too busy scratching and surviving to host subterranean raves. Instead, their leader (Gary Oldman) sends out a team of scouts (including Jason Clarke and Keri Russell) to activate an old hydroelectric station. Alas, the dam is on ape territory.

          The resulting clash seems inspired by the worst of the old Apes’ series, Battle for the POTA, but informed by a couple of generations’ worth of intractable ethnic strife. Like the Israelis and the Palestinians, or Sunnis and Shiites, the apes and humans share an interest in peaceful coexistence, if only the debate wasn't hijacked by extremists on both sides. Caesar would just as soon let the humans have their cushy electric gadgets, but he’s opposed by Koba (Toby Kebbell), a former inmate at a chimp research lab with a grudge against his old tormentors. Meanwhile, across the Bay, Clarke seeks a meeting of minds while Oldman sees Caesar’s crew as nothing more than animals. No credit for predicting where that attitude gets him.

          In short, Dawn is much, much better than Battle, and more intellectually ambitious than Rise. Where global nuclear annihilation was a live nightmare in 1968, Reeves’ movie has downsized its themes for an age of asymmetrical conflict between mutually uncomprehending tribes. For maybe the first time since Charlton Heston shook his fist at the Statue of Liberty, an ape film takes seriously its role to reflect the anxieties of its age.

          But there’s not much deeper than that. Like a smart tenth grader who knows how to get an A from a prickly teacher, Reeves and Co. do what’s required and no more. So how exactly do a few hundred apes in a town hewn from logs take over the entire Earth? How is it that writers Bomback, Jaffa and Silver did their research on social hierarchy  and reconciliation among real apes, but somehow believe chimps and gorillas brachiate limb-to-limb through the trees (which is a gibbon-ish thing to do, actually)?

          Maybe the most depressing thing about this primate-on-primate conflict is that so much depends on the Gandhi-esque character of Caesar. Where “great men” can cut through the knots lesser ones tie around themselves, in most ethnic blood-feuds the necessary MLKs, Lincolns and Mandelas stubbornly refuse to show up. In that sense, movies and history are the same: if we’re have to wait for individual greatness, the haul is sure to be a long one.

© 2014 Nicholas Nicastro