Tuesday 19 August 2014

The Thin White Dude's Movie Of The Month: July 2014 - Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes



Between this and Edge Of Tomorrow, it's been nice to have at least two summer blockbusters which deliver both the spectacle you'd expect from a big-budget picture, but also that they are of a high artistic quality. The harmony between the motion capture action (particularly Andy Serkis and Toby Kebbell) and the visual effects is breathtaking, with Weta Digital outdoing their amazing work in the previous film, truly bringing these apes to life. Their interactivity with the composites departments and Michael Seresin's cinematography deserve to be duly credited, as does Michael Giacchino's score, which legitimises the epic feeling of this franchise film. Design-wise, it's beautifully realised, a film of real provocative ideas and daring directions, with Matt Reeves delivering his best film to date. Aside from the 1968 original, it's the best film of the Apes saga. 

The Thin White Dude's Prognosis - 8.8/10



Runner-Up: Begin Again - Even with problems, John Carney's film has empathy and understanding for human emotions, displays an ear for dialogue and boasts strong performances from Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo.

Second-Most Deadly Disease: Transformers: Age Of Extinction - While there are things to admire, it's a $210 million movie with a horrible script full of cardboard cutout characters, cliches and expository nonsense which in conjunction with consistently inconsistent editing, make for a long expenditure of 165 minutes of your life.

Avoid Like The Plague: Tammy - With episodes of mish mash and balderdash, dulled underlying messages and a whole lot of other things I missed because the movie is too stupid to get it across appropriately, Tammy is not McCarthy's vehicle to set the world on fire.

No comments: