[YMS]: So I just saw Dawn of the Sequel of the Remake and it was Eh.
Now you don’t have to tell me how unoriginal and recycled that joke is, because I’m well aware of that.
But I figured it was most appropriate to use for this
movie because that’s exactly what this movie is.
This is easily one of the most clichéd movies I’ve seen in the past several years.
If you fit the category of someone who has seen a Hollywood blockbuster in the past ten
years and has the magical ability to retain information through a process called memory,
then you can pretty much guaranteed stay twenty minutes ahead of this movie at all times.
Now if you’re going to make the argument that I’m supposed to
shut off my brain and not think about things during the movie,
then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Because the type of films that I praise on this channel are
the ones that don’t get worse the more you think about them.
Now I’m going to take this opportunity to issue a spoiler warning and
apologize to those who wanted a spoiler-free review of this film,
it’s already going to be extremely difficult to try and
articulate these points to people that love this film,
so I’m going to try and be as specific as I possibly can.
First off, before everybody loses their heads I want to point
out that I believe in giving credit where credit is due.
There’s a few things in this film that stand out as being particularly well done.
Second, despite my tone of voice, I’m giving this film a positive rating.
So if you’re going to get upset over my 6/10 rating,
just remember that you’re not getting upset over me saying the movie is
bad, but merely that I don’t think it’s as great as you think it is.
Like I said, I believe in giving credit where credit is due, but
I also believe in not giving credit where credit isn’t due.
The aspect of this movie that I think deserves the most credit is the animation.
In fact, I might even buy a ticket to the next movie just to see how much technology has improved.
Because although we aren’t yet at the point where we
can’t tell that these apes aren’t computer animated,
there were parts of this movie that made me
think, ‘Holy shit, we’re getting really close!’
Certain angles and lighting conditions worked
better than others for the majority of the apes,
and it was clear that they spent more time on
some character models than they did other ones,
but that fucking orangutan, Jesus Christ, if this
wins them the Oscar for Best Visual Effects,
I will not be disappointed.
At certain points in the film I even thought, ‘You can’t
get a real orangutan to do that, what the- wh-what?'
This aspect alone is worth bringing the entire movie
from an average rating to an above average rating,
but that isn’t the only reason why it’s a 6 to me instead of a 5.
Despite Gary Oldman’s quick appearance in this film,
he did do a great job with his performance.
And I loved the scene with him looking at photos on
his tablet when the power comes back in the city.
Not only because they didn’t use that opportunity
to gratuitously shove a brand name in your face,
but because it’s proof that you can still include something
as clichéd as showing a character tear up looking at
photos of their missing and/or deceased family members,
but tweak it in a way that’s not only tailored
to fit the film, but be unique and interesting!
In less than thirty seconds and with almost no dialogue
the film manages to make a statement on how the way that our generation saves
information has become extremely dependent on powering our electronic devices.
So not only does it make Gary Oldman’s performance that much more powerful
because we can imagine how long it’s been since he’s even seen those photographs,
but the fact that it’s building off of and reimagining an
already universally well-known cliché makes it work even better
because it forces us to compare the scene to ones where actual photographs are being used
and thus better understand and relate to the character’s tears of joy.
Whoever wrote this scene into the movie, thank you because it is the
only scene that caught me off guard as being particularly well written.
Now I understand that well written to a lot of people can be described
as anything that’s not poorly written that they enjoy watching,
and I can agree, it’s not poorly written hence me not rating this film below a five,
but aside from a few things that I just pointed out,
this movie is the epitome of formulated, clichéd, and unexceptional.
Within the first five fucking seconds of the movie we see a montage of news reports-
like I get that there’s things that happened between the last movie and
this one that you want to explain to us so we know what’s going on,
but is there no other way to relay that information to us?
I don’t even see that many Hollywood blockbuster
movies because I generally try to avoid them because
it feels like I’m watching the exact same movie over and over,
but oh, what a surprise, the very last movie that I saw
in theatres before this one did the exact same thing.
I don’t understand how this could have happened.
Could we not even see a movie open up with just one
news report that relays the exact same information
instead of this clichéd ADHD montage of all of them?
Nope, because that would be slightly different.
And here in Hollywood, different equals risky business investments.
Near the beginning of the film, the soundtrack makes a nice
little nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Anyone familiar with the film would instantly recognize what the soundtrack was imitating.
And considering this happens right before they show apes not only using advanced
hunting techniques, but also using tools, I thought it was very fitting.
Extremely short lived, but fitting.
After that moment in the film the soundtrack quickly nosedives into
being one of the most cookie cutter soundtracks I’ve ever heard.
Again I will repeat, cookie cutter does not equal bad.
But it also does not equal exceptional.
If you fed a computer program every soundtrack from every
Hollywood blockbuster action movie in the past ten years,
this is the soundtrack it would come up with.
And the worst part about this soundtrack wasn’t even necessarily how it was written,
but the fact that they really overkilled its use.
Now I’m definitely not saying that a movie can’t be great if it’s soundtrack-heavy,
but when it goes past the point of emphasizing an emotion portrayed on screen
and into the realm of replacing your emotions with the ones that it feels you’re supposed to have,
it makes me wish that certain scenes in this movie had a little bit more self-restraint.
Most notably when Koba first finds these two guys wasting their ammo shooting a vehicle all day.
At first he looks aggressive and then he puts on a happy
face to try and deceive them and starts acting playful.
And whereas this could be a moment with legitimate
tension as to whether or not he would attack them,
instead the movie insists on throwing in that high
pitched staccato string instrument plucking bullshit,
like, ‘Derp, this is a goofy scene and you’re
not allowed to interpret things for yourself!
Nothing bad will happen in this scene because we are using goofy music!’
And wouldn’t you know it, the next time that Koba does the
exact same thing but actually has plans to kill them,
the soundtrack takes on a completely different tone and effectively
spoils the outcome of the scene as you’re watching it.
Now this criticism is definitely more relevant for
the first time it happens rather than the second,
because even with that unnecessary reinforcement it should be pretty
obvious how things are going to go down the second time anyway.
So if this were the only complaint I had about the movie
then obviously it wouldn’t carry that much weight,
but this is just one of many examples of this film
insisting on being as predictable as it possibly can.
The first human character that we see is some trigger
happy jerk that decides to shoot an ape for no reason.
And I guess for the sake of being specific I’m going to clarify that it
wasn’t technically no reason and he was obviously scared and a jerk.
And since I’ve seen a Hollywood blockbuster in the past
ten years and also can retain information through memory,
by the end of the scene it was excruciatingly obvious that this
specific character was going to cause some more plot device drama
between now and the end of the film.
Which was even further reinforced by the fact that they got back to the
city and then when the main character went back to the forest again,
they brought this guy with him.
Literally he serves no other purpose than to be that obvious bad guy on the human’s side.
The one guy that you know has already shot an ape,
and you’re bringing him with you to the forest where
you’re about to ask the apes to do you a favor,
this happening directly after we’ve established
the tense political climate between the species.
Hmm, I wonder if anything’s going to go wrong on this
mission and specifically be caused by this one character.
Oh oops, it turns out that he’s the one guy that
didn’t respect their wishes to not bring his gun.
Nobody could have seen this coming!
Nice job leaving your bag open for some reason you idiot.
Could the exact same plot devices not have affected the
script in the exact same way without it being so predictable?
Could we not have had another character accidentally shoot an ape at the beginning?
What would you have lost by doing that other than the ability
to sell this movie to people with an IQ of less than 40?
When you pander your movie towards people who can’t fucking figure
shit out unless it’s blatantly spelled out for them a million times,
then sure you get to sell more tickets, but then the movie
becomes the most predictable thing in the world for people
who have seen other movies and have a memory.
Every single scene in the movie I found myself begging,
‘Please have the sequence of events play out in a way that I don’t already expect it to!’
But sure enough, every single time it ended with
‘Nope, because that would be slightly different.’
If you’re not conscious of these clichés, then I’m happy for
you that you get to enjoy the same movie over and over again!
But acting as though I’m supposed to somehow not
be conscious of them as I’m watching a movie
is about the same as acting as though I’m supposed to somehow not be conscious
of what letter comes next in the alphabet while someone sings the ABCs.
When we establish that Koba has started rebelling and killing humans,
and then later show the only exaggeratedly and intentionally
unlikable human character alone in a vehicle at night,
I don’t understand how I’m supposed to be able to not have a
voice in my head saying, ‘Koba’s going to kill him right now.’
When you pick the most predictable outcome to the scene possible every
single time, it reinforces that the following scenes will also do that.
‘Adam, you’re just nitpicking. You’re just supposed to focus on the rich and developed characters:
Like stereotypical white male lead no. 748,
and stereotypical useless love interest no. 643,
and stereotypical teenage son character no. 311,
whose only defining trait is that he has a hobby.’
Seriously, if anybody’s going to defend the
development of his character by saying he draws,
then I can’t imagine what you’d be missing if you were ever
shown a character with more depth than a cutting board.
Can someone please describe this man’s character without also describing a rock?
Well if we give him any personality traits then the people in the audience that don’t
have those very specific personality traits will instantly find him unrelatable.
If we keep him as much of a blank slate as possible,
then everyone in the audience will be able to project their own
personalities onto the main character and like him regardless, yay!
The less effort you spend on writing, the more accessible the film becomes!
Let’s throw a young person who can’t act into our
movie so that the main character becomes relatable.
Let us make it abundantly clear that we do not
respect the intelligence of our target audience!
Why would we give characters personality when we could just give them props instead!
We don’t expect a white male with a wife and child to be able to
relate to a character that isn’t a white male with a wife and child.
That would require empathy!
And we do not believe that our target audience is capable of that!
Even the fucking main ape character has props!
Is his wife the only female ape there is?
Am I saying that all movies where a white male character has a wife and child are bad?
Of course not, and you’re missing the point.
The point is that if you’re going to include a character in your movie
and pretend as though they’re not a prop to the main character,
then you should probably have them fulfill a purpose in the
story that isn’t just being a prop to the main character!
I mean come on, the closest thing that we got to that
was the wife saying, ‘I brought antibiotics with me!’
And even that sliver of pretend purpose is
overshadowed by just how clichéd that entire scene is.
'I understand that there’s some distrust between our two
communities but I see that one of you is really sick
and it turns out we’re the only people that can help you with that!'
'Well just because one of us is on the brink of death, I’ll accept your offer begrudgingly,
oh hey, it turns out it worked, now our communities
have a little bit more trust with one another!'
I understand that there’s not much in this movie that they
technically did wrong, but they are reciting the fucking alphabet
and somehow I’m supposed to be entertained, like
‘Ooh hahaha, Q comes after P, didn’t see that one coming!
I wonder what’s gonna happen next, this is entertainment.
Please make more movies like this!’
Sadly, not all of the clichés that appeared in this film
weigh the film down just because they were clichés.
There are things that happen in this film that are already
stupid and it’s just insult to injury that it’s also a cliché.
Like nobody found it incredibly stupid and pandering
when Caesar looked at the footage of James Franco?
I mean I get that they really wanted to emphasize
the, ‘They’re not so different after all,’ cliché,
but was that the only reason why they showed up at James Franco’s house?
Did they decide that going to that place for that purpose was more important than
finding a practical place to hide out while the apes attack the city?
Is that where they were planning on going to hide out in the first place or was
it just the most convenient thing in the world that it happened to work out?
‘No guys I understand that while you’re driving me we could be killed by apes at any
moment but we have to go to James Franco’s house so we can tear-jerk the audience later.’
There was a fight scene in the movie that I was pretty into, you
know the one where Caesar strangles Koba and there’s actually blood?
And that would be a great scene altogether if they
didn’t insist on prefacing it with the cliché of,
'Protagonist, you’re showing empathy towards that other
community, now I’m going to pull a hardcore strawman
and pretend as though that means that you like
their community more than you like our community.’
[Koba]: Caesar Love Humans More Than Apes!
[YMS]: So Caesar gets shot by Koba in a way that’s
staged to make it look like the humans did it,
and then we get the cliché of,
‘Hey I’m a main character and I just got shot,
but since I did not get shot in the head I am going to come back later
in the movie cuz I did not die even though nobody knows it yet.’
So the apes wreak some havoc in the city because of the,
‘Let’s go to war under false pretenses’ cliché,
then we get the ‘impractical dual wielding but it looks cool’ cliché,
wherein Koba is somehow able to flawlessly maneuver which direction
his horse is turning without actually touching its reins or mane.
And then we get the cliché of,
‘Aw I’m laying down with a serious injury, quick, play some sad music
while I explain to you that the character who is responsible for doing this
to me is somebody who you previously trusted and they’ve betrayed us.’
And then that turns into the cliché of,
Time for me to beat up the main villain of this movie in a climactic fight scene,
despite the fact that I’ve been bleeding from an
untreated bullet wound for the past twenty four hours.’
Which wouldn’t be as bad if the movie didn’t treat
him as though he was fucking dying beforehand.
Not only is he struggling to climb up the fucking ladder to the fight scene itself,
but in the previous scene when he was explaining shit to his completely characterless son,
they felt it absolutely necessary to include the cliché of,
‘I’m lying down with a horrible injury and I’m going to attempt to sit up,
but it hurts too much so I’m going to lie back down again and
the character next to me is going to feel really sorry for me.’
Like the fight scene wouldn’t have been completely ruined if they didn’t
previously show those two moments of him struggling to fucking move.
'No, let’s just have him swinging around and beating the guy up!
Nobody’s gonna remember five minutes ago.'
And of course the result of this fight scene turns into the,
'Evil villain hanging from the edge of a cliff' cliché.
And of course this prompts the evil villain to use the, ‘If you’re such
a good guy then how come you’re going to kill me right now’ cliché.
And of course this leads to the ‘Evil villain meeting
his ultimate demise by falling to his death,’ cliché.
Anyway that pretty much sums up why I am unable to
give this movie a better rating than above average.
There were small parts of the film that I really liked and
I think I made some pretty good arguments for those parts.
So if you’re going to make the argument that I’m supposed to like something that I didn’t,
would you please be so kind as to provide similar
attemptively objective reasoning behind your own claims?
My position is not that you’re not supposed to like
it and that your reasons for liking it are invalid,
but merely that my reasons for being unable to enjoy the movie are not invalid reasons.
If you enjoy the movie, then good for you, you’re not wrong for enjoying it.
But criticizing a movie for repackaging the same film I’ve already paid full price
for a million times when it’s being branded as something new is hardly nitpicking.
Oftentimes I feel like people slap the word nitpicking onto
anything that they didn’t personally notice themselves.
I draw the line somewhere too guys, it’s not like I’m
dwelling on the fact that none of the apes have genitals,
is it too much to ask that when a new movie comes out and it advertises
itself as a new movie that I would be able to see a new movie?
As much as you might want to discount everything I said under the guise of,
‘Adam, you went into this movie wanting to hate it and that’s the only reason you did,
because you make up your mind before you see movies and you don’t like
things that are popular and have a big budget and come from Hollywood!’
If that’s seriously what you believe, then you’ll
have to explain why I loved The Lego Movie so much
and why I hate so many other bullshitty indie movies so much as well.
I give credit where I think credit is due, and I'd
like to think I provide a decent argument in doing so.
Movies like Prisoners are still crowd-pleasing and written by the book,
but there’s enough intelligent choices within the film that make it
feel like it was written by an actual person and not a computer!
Yes, the animation was fucking fantastic and I’m not going to deny that,
so excuse me for reviewing this movie as a movie and not a tech demo.
Even though I’ve tried to make myself as clear as possible,
it’s obvious that there’ll still be some people who think that I
only dislike this because I’m trying to be different and contrarian.
And I guess it makes enough sense that that would happen,
because it has become quite the predictable cliché.
Subtitles by Dicky Hayes