DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (US/UK - 2014) Directed by Matt Reeves. Written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver. Cast: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirk Acevedo, Nick Thurston, Karin Konoval, Terry Notary, Judy Greer, Jon Eyez, Doc Shaw. (PG-13, 130 mins)
The 2011 reboot RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was one of the biggest surprises in recent years: a smart summer blockbuster with convincing CGI, anchored by the superb motion capture performance of Andy Serkis as ape leader Caesar. Even in a mere three years, the technology has improved enough that Serkis, the face of cinematic motion capture between his work as Caesar, as Gollum in the LORD OF THE RINGS films, and in the title role of Peter Jackson's KING KONG, turns in his finest performance yet. Serkis and the other ape actors manage to create living, breathing performances that are visually enhanced by CGI, which is different from letting CGI do all of the work. On top of that, it's just a terrific film, the kind of grand, satisfying, action-packed entertainment that used to be what summer movies were all about. Of any recent summer franchise other than the DARK KNIGHT trilogy, the rebooted PLANET OF THE APES comes the closest to conveying the feeling that these might stand the test of time, certainly more than something along the lines of TRANSFORMERS.
Set a decade after the events of RISE, DAWN opens after a "simian flu" pandemic, generated by the Alzheimer's drug testing taking place in the first film, has wiped out most of humanity and turned the planet into a global wasteland. Caesar is the wise leader of a massive ape community in Muir Woods just outside of what was San Francisco. The apes sign, many speak functional English, and they've created a vibrant, self-sufficient society. That is, until a small group of humans enters the woods and the trigger-happy Carver (Kirk Acevedo) shoots and kills an ape. The leader of the group is Malcolm (Jason Clarke), a kind-hearted former CDC official accompanied by his nurse wife Ellie (Keri Russell), and his son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and a few others. They're trying to get to a nearby dam with the ability to restore power to the San Francisco area and after some initially tense unease, Malcolm reaches an understanding with Caesar, who allows them to venture to the dam as long as they turn in all of their guns and let the apes accompany them Of course, the idiotic Carver has managed to stash one away and of course he can't help himself and it ends up drawn on an ape, prompting Caesar to order all of them back to San Francisco. Malcolm pleads his case by keeping Carver confined to one of their trucks, earning the trust of Caesar, who wishes for peace and for the apes and humans to live their lives without intruding on one another. Caesar's tentative truce with the humans, which is helped by Ellie administering antiobiotics to Caesar's gravely-ill wife Cornelia (Judy Greer), annoys the militant Koba (Toby Kebbell), who holds a grudge against the humans who scarred him and experimented on him in a science lab. Koba repeatedly tries to push Caesar into fighting with the humans, even convincing Caesar's insecure, impressionable son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) to turn against his father. With no other options and determined to start a war against the humans, Koba commits an unthinkable act that pushes the situation its breaking point, quickly escalating into chaos and large-scale destruction.
RISE director Rupert Wyatt has been replaced by CLOVERFIELD and LET ME IN director Matt Reeves. Reeves and longtime Alan Parker cinematographer Michael Seresin (MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, ANGEL HEART) shot DAWN in 3-D, but it honestly doesn't add much to the experience and feels like the only superfluous element of the film. Screenwriters Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver use the little-loved BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973) as the template for the first portion of the film with the exploration of the ape community under the leadership of Caesar (played in more classically articulate fashion back then by Roddy McDowall) and his recurring philosophical disagreements with Koba, the new incarnation of BATTLE's warmongering Gen. Aldo (Claude Akins). Like Koba, Aldo commits an unspeakable act but against a different individual and at a different point in the film. DAWN isn't a straight up BATTLE redux, though as it proceeds, it becomes an homage to the second half of CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972), as McDowall's Caesar leads the ape revolt against the humans. Serkis' Caesar also leads a revolt--teaming with like-minded humans against Kobe's rebel faction of apes as well as a group of humans led by ex-military man Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), who isn't exactly a villain but is more than willing to wipe out the apes if it means the survival of his own community. Almost every character, be they human or ape, has a doppelganger--Malcolm and Caesar in their wish for peace, Dreyfus and Caesar in doing whatever is necessary to protect their kingdom, Carver and Koba in their need for conflict and thirst for blood, Alexander and Blue Eyes as impressionable youths trying to prove something to their fathers. It's these relationships that give DAWN a bit more emotional resonance than your standard summer explosion movie. There's plenty of that, but the strong points of DAWN lie in the quiet moments with little or no dialogue, in a look of understanding and respect, or a touch of hands to signify trust and forgiveness.
The actors playing the humans are fine, but the key performances come from Serkis and Kebbell. Kebbell (ROCKNROLLA, THE VETERAN) is so good here that he might even steal some of Serkis' motion-capture thunder. He manages to make Koba more than a one-dimensional villain, as early on, he has no interest in supplanting Caesar as the leader and only acts in his king's best interest. Only later, when his hatred of humans and his long-suppressed anger over his physical and emotional scars pushes him into committing the most forbidden of acts in the ape culture, does he turn into a tyrannical, terrifying monster. Motion capture is such that the actors do the majority of their acting with their eyes and their facial muscles, and even more so than Serkis, Kebbell's eyes sell Koba's rage and hatred in a way that's spine-chilling. It's a remarkable performance in an excellent film in a rebooted franchise that, two films in, has surpassed all expectations of quality and relevance.
John Cusack's career is in a strange place that his fans never would've expected a decade ago. At 47, he's obviously outgrown the boyish romantic roles that made him so iconic back in his younger SURE THING and SAY ANYTHING days. For a while, beloved favorites like GROSSE POINTE BLANK, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and HIGH FIDELITY made it seem like Cusack would be "John Cusack" forever. But long careers have peaks and valleys and he's in a major slump these days. When he tries to go for hammy character parts, as in THE RAVEN and the embarrassing THE PAPERBOY, he doesn't seem comfortable, instead remaining reserved in roles that call for him to go over the top (even when he's rubbing one out to Nicole Kidman in THE PAPERBOY). And misfired personal pet projects like 2008's WAR, INC come off as smug and preachy. So, for the most part, he stays busy by settling for unchallenging roles as cops or detectives (he was terrible in this year's pathetic THE FACTORY), or in the case of THE NUMBERS STATION, a burned-out CIA agent. After botching a job in New Jersey when he refuses to kill a teenaged girl who witnessed one of his government-assigned hits, Emerson Kent (Cusack) is banished to a CIA-operated numbers station in the middle of nowhere in Suffolk in the English countryside. Still haunted by the girl's death--carried out by his boss Grey (Liam Cunningham)--Kent self-medicates with booze and has a cordial working relationship with Katherine (Malin Akerman), the contracted cryptographer he supervises. It's just the two of them in a secret underground bunker, filled mainly with long hours of staring at the wall until the occasional message comes down for Katherine to covertly broadcast. Kent and Katherine arrive at the facility for their shift and find it compromised, with the supervisor and cryptographer on duty murdered. They're trapped inside as a team of enemy agents are trying to find their way in, and when he calls for help, Kent is told to terminate Katherine.
THE NUMBERS STATION's opening 25 or so minutes are surprisingly engaging, but once it settles in, with Kent and Katherine trapped inside as the villains, led by Max (Richard Brake), try to get in, it becomes a sluggish sort-of Black Ops RIO BRAVO. There's no real surprises and no escalating tension, bickering takes the place of character development, the climax hinges on Kent doing something uncharacteristically stupid because the script requires him to, and the story doesn't really build to a suspenseful conclusion as much as it ambles towards a quick and easy wrap-up. If you remove a few F-bombs, with its relatively short running time, it almost feels it could be the pilot of the CBS cop/agent procedural that Cusack will inevitably be doing after a couple more years of forgettable fare like this. Released to just a few theaters a month ago, THE NUMBERS STATION is a diverting enough time-killer on a slow night (and it probably plays a lot better streaming on Netflix than it would dropping $10 on seeing it theatrically) and Cusack is better here than in his other recent efforts, but this is a paycheck for him and he doesn't need to do anything more than show up and be a professional. In a way, it seems like he's been getting the gigs that Nicolas Cage turned down because they didn't really give him enough of a chance to "Nic Cage" it up. It's only fitting that the two actors, far removed from their box-office glory days of 1997's CON AIR, are reunited (with the added bonus of the inevitable 50 Cent) in the upcoming thriller THE FROZEN GROUND, which will most likely be bypassing theaters near you later this year. (R, 89 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
DARK SKIES (US/UK - 2013)
Is it just me or does every horror film released these days boast "From the makers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS"? DARK SKIES combines elements of both (no found footage, thankfully) and plays a lot like a reworking of INSIDIOUS, employing the same essential template, but with aliens filling in for malevolent spirits. It has an eerie vibe throughout and isn't without a legitimately chilling moment here and there, but there's just such an overwhelming feeling of familiarity to the whole endeavor that it's just really hard to get excited about it. The Barretts are a middle-class family in a rough patch: dad Daniel (Josh Hamilton) recently lost his job and mom Lacy (Keri Russell) is a real estate agent in need of a sale. 12-year-old son Jesse (Dakota Goyo) is starting to rebel and five-year-old Sam (Kadan Rockett) starts sleepwalking, wetting himself, and saying he's getting nocturnal visits from someone he calls "The Sandman." Food is scattered throughout the kitchen in the middle of the night, items are perfectly stacked ceiling-high on kitchen counters, and all of the family photos disappear from their picture frames. Three different flocks of birds fly directly into their house from different directions, all of the family members start hearing individual ringing in their ears, Daniel has a strange mark behind his ear, and Lacy loses six hours when she blacks out and starts banging her head against a sliding glass door while showing a house. Lacy's research leads her to a freelance alien contact expert (J.K. Simmons), who verifies their story, tells them he lives it every day, and that "The Grays," as he calls them, have been here for millions of years, will not leave a family alone once they've "chosen" one, they observe their targets for years, and only make their presence known when they're about to abduct someone.
Much like the family in INSIDIOUS dealt with the paranormal and couldn't escape it even after they moved ("It's not the house that's haunted...it's your son that's haunted"), DARK SKIES puts its family in a hopeless situation that isn't going to get better, and when strange markings start appearing on Jesse's and Sam's bodies, the authorities start investigating Daniel and Lacy for child abuse. The film gets off to a shaky and sometimes unconvincing start, beginning with the family's glib non-reaction to food being strewn about their kitchen and not really all that concerned that something got in their house and into the fridge (Daniel: "A big rabbit with opposable thumbs?"), to the elements pilfered from other movies (the stacking straight out of POLTERGEIST), and, as long as I'm being nit-picky, who goes to a job interview at a prestigious design firm sporting the kind of five-day vacation/stay-at-home-dad stubble that Daniel does? Surprisingly, DARK SKIES improves as it proceeds, and I liked the way writer/director Scott Stewart (whose dubious track record includes LEGION and PRIEST) handled Simmons' character. In most cases, the crackpot extraterrestrial expert would be wildly eccentric with a tinfoil hat, with the actor hamming it up for comic relief. Simmons plays his character dead serious and resigned to the fact that "The Grays" have dominated his life, which seems to be a struggle just to get through the day. It's the one legitimately unpredictable element of a script that's so by-the-numbers that you'll even be able to utter certain lines of dialogue moments before the characters do. And yes, there's a twist ending because of course there is. DARK SKIES is OK for what it is (and Simmons is quite good in his minimal screen time), but it just seems like it could've--and should've--been a lot more. (PG-13, 97 mins)
