WHY has the Planet of the Apes franchise endured in popular culture for the best part of 50 years? Maybe it’s simply that apes, as symbols, are so remarkably versatile. They can be cute, savage or noble: they can represent tortured innocence, the bestial side of humanity and everything in between.
The original Planet of the Apes, released in 1968, drew much of its unacknowledged meaning from the context of the civil rights struggle. Depending how you looked at it, the prequel to this latest offering, Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was either a prophetic vision of the fall of the First World or an environmentalist statement where Nature herself threatened revenge for centuries of ill-treatment.
In this follow-up, that revenge has already occurred, via a virus that has drastically boosted ape intelligence while killing off most of the human race.
In the aftermath, we follow the fortunes of two oddly similar patriarchal tribes: former lab chimp Caesar (“played” by a digitally recreated Andy Serkis) is now king of the forest, while the film’s human protagonist Malcolm (Australian Jason Clarke from Zero Dark Thirty) is part of a group of survivors scratching out a living in the ruins of nearby San Francisco, led by the ape-despising Dreyfus (Gary Oldman).
The series itself has evolved, and not entirely to its benefit. Where Rise had a B-movie brio, Dawn is more self-consciously serious, as if aiming to elevate innately trashy material.
As entertainment, Dawn is impeccably crafted and often spectacular. Yet conceptually it’s never as interesting as it could have been, especially compared with its predecessor, which portrayed humans as arrogant over-reachers deserving their comeuppance.
Here, the good guys are moderates like Caesar and Malcolm, who believe in mutual understanding between species, while the villains are those who try to stir up trouble. There may be something to be said for this pacifist stance but it seems a little hypocritical, since the whole thrust is to get us eagerly anticipating the next bout of ape-versus-human mayhem.
