Movie of the Week: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

A continuation of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", it takes place many years into the future, where humans were thought to be extinct and apes rule as the dominant race. The movie revolves around the struggle that Caesar and the other apes deal with when they are re-introduced to humankind. This struggle then turns into all-out battle against the humans in pursuit of power led by Koba, an ape who had usurped Caesar as leader of the apes.

This movie had a lot more action in it when compared to its prequel as it was more focused on the conflict between each character rather than on character development. It was also quite dark, both in lighting and in nature. For the lighting, there were many scenes that were shot at night or in a dark area, which made it a bit difficult to see what was happening. For the nature of the film, there were times when the scene would be centered around joy and laughter, and would suddenly change to hate, anger, and even murder.

As a fan of the first film, I really liked how the sequel was made. The pacing of the story was a bit slow, but it had a good plot. What got me the most though was that despite using many computer-generated graphics, and the fact that the apes were talking in incomplete and sometimes incoherent sentences for most of the film, the emotions of the apes were still shown and emphasized.

If you liked the first film, I highly recommend that you watch this one if you haven't already.

- Lee Balmaceda, 12-F

The review was written by Karlos Dawang of 10-A.

Summary: A couple years after the near destruction of Chicago, the Transformers face backlash from the world and go into hiding. A down-on-his-luck father and his daughter then find a transformer and their lives are changed forever.

Review: What people really expect from a Transformers movie is a fun action movie with giant robots, good special effects, and the chance to turn off their brains for some action and large spectacle. So it is very disappointing that what we get after 3 tries is a long boring movie with dumb humor, only a few entertaining action sequences, and an extreme overuse of explosions and special effects that at times looks worse than the first movie. 

The movie's worst problem is its length. Clocking in at about 2 hours and 40 minutes, the tolerance for the movie's problems nosedives at about the 1 hour-30 minute mark. The plot starts off reasonably well, but as the movie progresses, more elements just keep getting added in and the plot becomes this huge mess. 

The characters don't fare better. Mark Wahlberg's character is just a generic hero type; his daughter is a typical teen that gets on your nerves as the movie goes on. The Transformers get a new team of characters that feel mostly expendable but some get a few pretty fun moments. Bumblebee really feels like a side character and Optimus Prime should be in the movie more. And of course the Dinobots , which received heavy promotion, are in the movie for about 10 minutes and they did not feel significant. 

The special effects are shockingly obvious at times. There are moments when it is painfully obvious the actors are in front of a green screen. The movie also has a lot of explosions and destruction, and in a 2 hour-40 minute movie, it gets old and boring really fast. After a while, you just become dulled to explosions. They become loud noises and flashy lights instead of adding to the spectacle.

Many of the problems I have stated have been problems in the previous movies, so if you can get past these, then perhaps you will like the movie. However, the movie's running time and its special effects blunders cannot be forgiven. One also can't help but get the feeling of been there, done that.