Movie Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Things were looking up for Caesar (Andy Serkis) when last we left him at the close of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He had just shepherded his followers through a fierce battle on the Golden Gate that, though not without its fair share of deaths, didn't claim as many casualties as the revolt did in Rise's 1972 iteration, Conquest. If you stayed for Rise's closing credits, you'd have seen that the story's worst news was saved for a quick stinger depicting the spread of a genetically engineered virus that would soon wipe out most of humanity. In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, director Matt Reeves (notable for somehow improving the noteworthy Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In with its American remake, Let Me In) picks up from there, quickly explaining the state of civilization in a world purged by plague. Humans have all but disappeared. And the super-intelligent apes led by the regal Caesar (Andy Serkis) are thriving peacefully in a forest outside of San Francisco.

Movie Review: The Great Gatsby (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

As wealthy Jay Gatsby, actor Leonardo DiCaprio walks out to the edge of the millionaire's private dock and reaches for a shiny green light cutting through the mist. Over the image, Tobey Maguire's Nick Carraway redundantly paraphrases what F. Scott Fitzgerald so eloquently wrote for his famous narrator in The Great Gatsby, "...he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock." This scene is so brief and indelible in Fitzgerald's novel, yet it speaks volumes about its enigmatic central figure. Coupled with Carraway's unnecessary exposition in Baz Lurhmann's new film, the wistful moment becomes leaden with portent. So much so, that I re-watched the same scene in the 1974 screen adaptation last night on Netflix and, after ending up drawn into viewing the rest of the film, was struck by how fluidly director Jack Clayton wordlessly elides through the pivotal moment. Granted, the austere 1974 version has its own set of problems. But as cold as it is, it seems practically definitive next to Lurhmann's tricked out translation.

Zero Dark Thirty

by Tony Dayoub

Zero Dark Thirty begins with heart-wrenching audio recordings of 911 calls placed from inside the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. From there, the long awaited film about the manhunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden follows a rigid three-act structure that is one part Michael Mann-style procedural—in which we get to know a protagonist simply through process—and one part meta-analysis of how America once again lost its innocence, possibly for good this time. That director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal frame this film through a unique perspective rarely found in war films—that of a female—is the key innovation. Instead of attempting to duplicate the action beats of their last Academy Award-winning film, The Hurt Locker (2008), by predictably zeroing in on the SEAL operation to capture or kill Bin Laden, aka UBL, Bigelow and Boal open up the canvas to spin a sprawling tale involving everyone from CIA field operatives to their more political Washington-based intelligence counterparts, from suspicious informants to the most trustworthy of military officers.