Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Gets This Ape-palling Honest Trailer
This article is more than 2 years old
Now that we’re almost five months removed from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes taking over theaters, it’s probably safe to yell through Gary Oldman’s bullhorn that Matt Reeves’ ape-filled sequel just isn’t as good as it seemed at the time. But don’t take it solely from me, this Honest Trailer says it all.
I’m pretty sure no one on Earth can deny that watching the stunning “apes on horseback” siege wasn’t one of this year’s action highlights, because that scene was just one big ball of badass hairy mayhem. That said, I felt the “Discount Charlton Heston” description for Jason Clarke, an actor I enjoy very much, was perfect. It wasn’t his fault that the script basically turned him into an exposition machine. 75% of the film’s characters weren’t even proper English speakers. And don’t get me started on the wasted use of Gary “I’m Just Gonna Bark Stuff Out At Everyone” Oldman. Oy, the humans. (If only Ape-ril O’Neil had been her real name.)
The video hits upon a lot of the things that people politely railed on the movie for when it came out, like the whole “Does a dawn come before a rise?” argument, and Andy Serkis’ Batman voice. And then there’s that whole dam plotline, which I’d honestly forgotten about. I’m not sure what my memory banks remembered the movie was about, probably just fire and guns and monkeys and fire.
But contrary to all faults is the obvious skill involved with acting opposite someone in a performance-capture suit. There are many reasons why I’m not an actor, and not being able to stifle giggles is one of them. But I bet there’s quite a bit of relief going on when Serkis and the others finally take off their equipment and everyone can half a nice long laugh about it.
When all is said and done, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will always be amazing for the monkeys on horseback scenes, as well as everything involving the apes and their makeshift civilization. I can’t wait to see what happens next, assuming it looks nothing like Tim Burton’s bonkers Planet of the Apes movie from what feels like a half-century ago. That also got an honest trailer a while back, which you can watch below.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes hit DVD and Blu-ray this week, with the third film already penciled in for July 29, 2016.
