Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes was roundly praised upon its release last summer for being one of the smartest, tensest and visually arresting blockbusters of recent years. But that doesn’t mean that it’s completely impervious to criticism. Far from it, as it turns out, as the good people over at Cinema Sins have now tallied up all of the films cinematic faults, and uploaded their findings to the world wide web for our enjoyment.
So, in total, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes committed 104 cinema sins over the course of its 131-minute time. That’s roughly one every 1 minute and 15 seconds, which -- while it doesn’t sound great -- isn’t too bad a return when you compare it to the number of "sins" committed by other blockbusters from last summer… *ahem* Transformers: Age Of Extinction *ahem*.
So what were the negative elements exposed in this video ? Well, how about right off the bat there’s the opening montage trying to insist that the standoff on the Golden Gate bridge at the end of The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was six hours long, when it was basically just a brief tussle between a few errant apes and the authorities. Meanwhile a random bear in Northern California attacks the apes, even though there hasn’t been a confirmed bear sighting in that area since 1922. And why did this last pocket of humans wait for their fuel to be just two weeks away from running out before doing anything about it?
Cinema Sins even goes outside the realm of the narrative to point out the simply annoying nature of its preamble. You may have noticed that film that begins with 47 seconds worth of logos, which is a fact worthy of some chastise. Would it be that hard for all of the companies involved to perhaps trim down the theatrics in their individual logos? No-one in the audience is paying any attention the flashy visual effects that companies or studios embellish them with.
Speaking of visual effects though, as Cinema Sins points out, it’s now beyond a joke that Andy Serkis fails to gain any recognition during awards seasons for his seismic turns using performance-capture technology. It’s just depressing that he is roundly ignored by the powers that be, even though he has dragged this cinematic machinery into the mainstream consciousness. And Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes might be his greatest work in this field to date. This is a wrong really needs to be righted, whether it’s by eventually giving Serkis the Academy Award nomination he deserves, or by creating a special category to award the revolutionary work he’s doing.
Despite these oversights, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes was still obviously hugely enjoyable, and it will be followed by a third instalment to the franchise, which is expected in July 2017. Hopefully they can learn from the above video, and perhaps reduce the number of sins to below triple digits.
