Summer Movie Memories: No Monkeying Around For This Franchise

Up until Labor Day, I'll be looking at seven different summer movies from Summer 2014 and analyzing what really made them stand out this summer, for reasons both good and bad. Obviously, SPOILERS for Dawn of the Planet of The Apes, as well as Godzilla, lie ahead. 


Remember when I mentioned in my Godzilla Summer Movie Memories installment how I loved scenes where they just let tension flow through the film like running water? Well then, you can imagine how much I loved several scenes in Dawn of The Planet of The Apes, which director Matt Reeves ingeniously populated with scenes that used subtlety to convey danger instead of poorly done wham-bam Zack Snyder-esque scenes. There's this great moment where two humans test out guns, firing them away, unaware of three apes swinging above right behind them. The cameras just lets the shot play out, never frantically cutting away, making sure the dread in the audience builds up to a glorious peak.

The rest of the movie takes a page from that scene and allows things to be slowly drawn out. The movies in no rush to get to certain plot points, nor should it be. By allowing there to be calm and relaxed pace at the start of the adventure, it just helps emphasize how chaotic things are when the humans and apes face off. The pacing is beautifully paired with some terrific characters, namely Caesar, whose progression through this movie and its predecessor is just spectacular to watch.

I love that Apes, as well as Godzilla, learned the use of taking ones time to go through a story. This approach would obviously wouldn't work with every movie (The LEGO Movie is a great example of a film that uses a super-fast speed to its advantage in terms of storytelling, while Edgar Wrights cinematic masterpieces are practically built on a speedy rhythm) But for these two, they're not interested in going for some forgettable mayhem that Michael Bay can churn out with a terrible Transformers movie. No, they're far more fascinated in letting both the characters and the audience get invested in the world, and then watch it all go to hell.

What I find really exciting about this though is that both movies manage to inject plenty of moments of awesomeness into the proceedings. The way Godzilla disposes of his final enemy is glorious to witness, while a moment where Koba fires away two guns at the same time, while riding a horse, demonstrates that Apes screenwriters Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver never forget to utilize the plot for moments of perfectly executed fun. Honestly, the fact that Dawn of The Planet of The Apes can balance both drama and action in such a masterful manner is truly a sight as fantastic as the movies final battle. It's smaller and more intimate than the likes of Man of Steel, but this showdown between two primates packs an astoundingly powerful punch on an emotional and visceral level.