APES DISLIKE WAR, BUT DO HUMANS?
“They’re animals and they attacked” is the simplistic justification for Dreyfus (played by Gary Oldman) to launch war in The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves. Just substitute Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis for “animals,” and the film would be accused of partisanship. But filmviewers will instead enjoy the fantasy of a world that continues from the latest in the series (apes break out of their cages to escape experimental cruelty, they carry a deadly virus, millions of humans die, and apes multiply and colonize Mt. Tamalpias outside San Francisco). Some humans are left, resistant to the virus strain, and they hope to get electric power from Alpine Dam, so they send a team, the first humans observed by the apes in a decade. The ape power structure is now divided between peaceloving Caesar (Andy Serkis) and warlike Koba (Toby Kebbell), both of whom learned English and sign language in the lab. When one frightened human kills an ape, Caesar stops any rush to war, and he assists humans to get the dam working. However, Caesar is shot by another human who does not understand the ongoing simian-human cooperation. Boga then brings war to the humans in San Francisco and captures humans and followers of Caesar as prisoners. Humans, meanwhile, are helping Caesar to recover from the serious wound, and he must reassert his power position to stop the war. Dreyfus then articulates the quote above to the dismay of Malcolm (Jason Clarke) who has just helped Caesar recover. The film ends on uncertainties, as an “Iraq War” looms, so another in the series is doubtless being written today. MH