Unending Conflict: Thoughts on DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Why does war exist? 

"Hey, now," I hear you say, "I didn't come here for some kind of philosophical debate! Just tell me if the movie with talking monkeys on horses with big ass spears and machine guns is as awesome as it sounds!" But that's the thing. The Planet of the Apes franchise has never been just about one thing. There has always been a dichotomy in its purpose. On one hand, you know, apes on horseback with guns and shit - the type of thing you'd find floating around the mind of any adolescent boy. On the other hand, every film in the Apes franchise (now in its second reboot) has had some form of social commentary, often going to incredibly dark and emotional places. Charlton Heston has damned everyone to hell, babies have been killed and the earth has been blown up. So, why does war exist? Surprisingly, Matt Reeves's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes provides one of the most compelling answers I've seen in a long time to that impossible question. It also has a set piece where two apes fight each other with scrap metal on top of a crumbling skyscraper. 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes picks up where 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes credits ended (a graphic of criss-crossing planes representing the spread of the virus created by the biotech company Gen-Sys). In a short vignette, we learn that over the last 10 years the virus, dubbed "Simian Flu," has wiped out the majority of Earth's human population. There are a few groups of survivors huddled together in the ruins of their various cities unaware if they are the last ones out there. In a crumbling San Francisco we meet one of these groups led by Malcolm (Jason Clark), an ethical and decent human being, and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), another good man but one who only wants to protect his people but who also seems to be more willing than Malcolm to do whatever it takes to ensure that safety. 

These (and the others that make up the colony) are not bad people people. In fact, they're sympathetic because of how easily we can identify with their lives before the apocalypse. But the group of human survivors are only part of the equation. Deep within the Muir Woods lives a far more interesting group. There, led by Caesar (an absolutely stunning and heartbreaking performance by a motion-captured Andy Serkis), is a sophisticated village full of hyper-intelligent apes. There are faces we came to know in the first film - whether it be the wise and affable Maurice (Karin Konoval), the loyal Rocket or the scar-covered, rage-fueled Koba (Toby Kebbell) - and there is a new generation of children both young and old.

Unlike the humans, this is a civilization that is thriving. They live in elaborate homes built into the trees, they hunt together using weapons they have crafted themselves and they have been instructed in the intricacies of the English language by Maurice. Most of all, however, they have come to learn and accept the credo that "Ape not kill ape." Caesar's son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) hunts beside him as his equal and Caesar's mate (Judy Greer) gives birth to another son. The apes want for nothing. Sure, they bicker from time to time, but it is a tribe of peace. 

Then the humans, in an attempt to find and repair a hydroelectric dam, enter the scene and an intense, violent encounter suggests that renewed relations being the two species will not end well. But Caesar allows the humans to leave. It's here that Dawn begins a back and forth that switches sympathy between humans and apes. The chimps had the misfortune to run into the most trigger happy and paranoid of an otherwise calm and reasonable group of humans. The humans also didn't enter the woods to kill any of the apes. Their goals were peaceful and solely motivated by necessity. And while the encounter ends with no further violence, it's an incident that puts both tribes on their toes, causing each group to become weary of the other from afar. Dreyfus tells his people to prepare their weapons, Caesar finds his actions and authority questioned by Koba who, unlike the most of the other apes, continues to harbor immense disdain for the species that experimented on him and took his eye. Caesar and Malcolm realize the need for peace, but the humans' fearfulness and anger and the apes' confidence and envy quickly turn things to violence once more. 

What's so spectacular about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is that we're rooting for both sides. When the first major battle occurs, even though the action is visually stunning and viscerally exciting the overriding emotion is dread. The action is thrilling and remarkable and all we want is for it to STOP. When the humans finally restore the power and Malcolm and his family (Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee) are with Caesar and his family looking at the bright lights of a renewed San Francisco, the feeling isn't one of happiness. There's a tightness in our chests because we know things don't end like this. When we see the people in the city celebrating the return of their lights and their vitality, the realization that this type of peace and happiness cannot last is crushing. 

Like most real world conflicts, this isn't a war where one side is all right and the other is all wrong. Everyone has a point and everything the characters do is understandable from where they're standing. There are decent people coming at it from both sides attempting to find the most reasonable and peaceable end. But both sides also have their villains whose flaws spiral things into their inevitable and heartbreaking conclusion. Reeves's fantastic visual sense and beautiful choreography are matched by a Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver script that expertly combines strong storytelling with nuance and ambiguity. Sure, this is a film where apes ride tanks and shoot sub-machine guns from the backs of horses, but it's also a film that forms and navigates a delicate political situation that echoes many of the global conflicts in the world today - a especially strong parallel being to the seemingly endless strife between Israel and Palestine where every small step towards peace is quickly erased, dragged down again and again by bloodshed. At the end of the day, the conflict in Dawn can be boiled down to same thing most of our real world conflicts can: two groups who are equally scared of one another. 

Yet for all of its important and philosophical ideas, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes remains a film of exhilaration - a visceral film constantly moving, full of amazing action, unexpected moments and captivating, often gun-wrenching poignancy. While Russell and many of the other humans don't have much to do, they are all able (particularly Oldman and Clark) to convey the gravity of the situations in which they find themselves. Like with Rise, the apes also have weight and an undeniable presence thanks to motion-capture work that is easily the most breathtaking I've ever witnessed. After Serkis, who brilliantly conveys in subtle gestures and looks the immense burden put upon Caesar by his own principles, Toby Kebbell as Koba is the standout. Whether it be in a particularly emotional scene where he points at all of scars repeating "Human! Work!" over and over again or in a scene where he engages in stereotypical primate behavior in order to outsmart and ultimately overtake a couple of idiotic humans guarding the armory, Kebbell manages to create one of the most layered villains of the year. When an ape is hurt or when they are pounding on one another or falling in battle, the impacts are physically and emotionally palpable. And that's what makes Dawn of the Planet of the Apes one of the best films I've seen so far in 2014. 

Like all of the best Planet of the Apes films, Dawn is able to create a sense that no matter how ridiculous and unbelievable the premise seems, what happens here matters. And as the film closes and we look into Caesar's weary eyes (forever changed from the warrior that began the film), we realize along with him that the fate of the world hangs on the choices that will be made by these characters, both human and ape alike, in their day-to-day struggle to survive. 

9 out of 10

"People Are Strange": Review of DELIVER US FROM EVIL

I read somewhere that audiences make their minds up about whether or not they like a film within the first 15 minutes. Now, I'm still dubious about that theory, but one thing I've noticed again and again is that if a film has serious problems, they will more often than not reveal themselves quickly (and hilariously a lot of the time). Sometimes it's something blatantly obvious like the actors are terrible or the sets/CGI looks cheap. Other times it can be a problem with the story or screenplay. Either the logic is flawed and nothing makes sense or the writing is just simply atrocious. And on the rare occasion, you get the impression that something is wrong before even seeing a single frame of the film. 

In Deliver Us from Evil, the latest horror film from director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose), before anything gets started the film's creators want the audience to know that the film is based on the real-life accounts of New York police officer Ralph Sarchie. Like that means anything! Look, plenty of movies are based on true stories and are great. Hell, some of the best films of all time are based on true stores. But an exorcism movie "based on the accounts of New York police officer Ralph Sarchie"? That means nothing! That's like a horror movie about Bigfoot saying at the beginning that it's based on the accounts of this guy who was totally attacked and kidnapped by Bigfoot this one time. It means nothing. The only reason it's there is to try and provide some gravitas to the events on screen and hopefully elicit a reaction of, "Well, I would say this is pretty laughable, but if it actually happened... Man!" Audiences don't care if a movie is based on a true story. They just want to watch a good movie (and in this case, one that's scary and suspenseful). It's not only lazy storytelling, it's insulting to viewers. It's also the film's biggest problem.

Deliver Us from Evil constantly tries (and fails miserably) to add weight and meaning to the inevitable silliness of the exorcism subgenre. Nearly every scene seems shrouded in darkness. Ralph Sarchie and his partner Butler (Eric Bana and Joel McHale) constantly find themselves slowly tiptoeing through unlit, spooky New York City apartments and brownstones with only their flashlights (which constantly seem to be going out) to guide them until some kind of animal pops out to bark or hiss at them. The city is also constantly being assaulted with torrential downpours leaving our protagonists to sit moodily in their cars contemplating life and the urban decay around them. However, unlike the moral squalor of a film like David Fincher's Se7en, here it just feels like an attempt to add gravity to a film full of cliches. 

It's a film that somehow manages to be a generic exorcism movie AND a generic cop movie at the same time. The majority of the movie is populated with scenes of either Sarchie and Butler investigating various supernatural disturbances or examining evidence to track down a mysterious veteran turned painter (Sean Harris) who seems to be involved in the deaths of his military friends and their loved ones. When this isn't happening, Sarchie can mostly be found hearing things others can't and talking to Father Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez), a Spanish Jesuit priest and ward of one of the mysterious painter's supposed victims, about his past sins and all the weird stuff that's been going on. Sarchie also has a wife and daughter (Oliva Munn and Lulu Wilson), but they're mainly there to be terrorized by unseen and unexplained forces and to be the reservoir into which Sarchie pours all of his fetid memories of being on the force even though he "doesn't want to bring that stuff home." And all of this might have been tolerable if the exorcism/horror part of the film was actually any good. Unfortunately, what it boils down to is a few jump scares in darkened buildings or on darkened streets. Jump scares, mind you, where the thing that does the scaring isn't even frightening. Rarely is it a ghoul or a possessed human. More often than not it's a cat (Sarchie hates cats) or a dog or a dangling pipe that kind of looks like a snake. When it is something otherworldly, we never see it. Now, I don't have a problem with not seeing what is torturing Sarchie's family, but Derrickson just cuts away! Sarchie's daughter hears scratching in the walls, her stuffed owl Ha Ha Hoo's and rolls around, doors slam and then Olivia Munn rescues her and that's it. They don't even talk about it with Sarchie, A POLICE OFFICER THAT HAPPENS TO LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE AS THEM. 

Then there's the final exorcism scene where things are finally going to come to a head. Sarchie and Mendoza find and arrest the mysterious painter and find themselves face to face with the demon in a locked interrogation room. As Mendoza prepares, he tells Sarchie the five steps to exorcising a demon and warns him to only read the responses to the bible verses Mendonza reads. As we're told, Sarchie has a type of ESP and may be vulnerable to the demon's tricks. And then they begin... the most generic and somehow boring exorcism in history. It's clear from the opening scene that the film wanted to be just like William Friedkin's 1973 classic The Exorcist. But where that film was able to find a sense of dread deep within the hearts of its audience, where it was able to create an exorcism that felt both terrifying and heartbreaking, Deliver Us from Evil fizzles out. For one, the exorcism goes off nearly without a hitch. Sarchie is only ever bothered once when the demon blasts loud noises directly into his brain. Most of the time, he's actually really helpful. It's even his ESP that allows the duo to find out that the demon's name is "The Jungler" (continuing the hilarious trope of demons with ridiculous names) which helps Mendoza cast it out. And while you would expect the priest to actually be the one who is nearly deceived by the demon, where Father Karras is both tortured and finally possessed himself by the demon in The Exorcist, all it takes for Father Mendoza to snap out of it is a quick pep talk from good ol' Sargent Sarchie. Finally, after 5 or so minutes, they cast the demon out. He blows a few windows out and yells really loud, but he leaves. His host, the weary solider/painter, looks confused and in shock but remembers and tells Sarchie where the demon locked his wife and daughter and there's a triumphant slow motion reunion. The end. 

Actually, not quite. We're informed through an ending paragraph that Ralph Sarchie retired shortly after these events and now works with Father Mendoza as a demonologist, which got me thinking - How good would this have been as a documentary?! Now, I'm not trying to take away from the actors themselves - they are easily the best and strongest aspect of the film and make poorly written dialogue and silly situations work as best they can. (Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez are both fantastic and Joel McHale is a particularly surprising standout. The way he is able to combine his patented snarky humor with the seriousness and physicality that is also called for is terrific.) But this story would have worked so well as a documentary. Learning about the real Ralph Sarchie and hearing his direct accounts of his exploits would have been incredibly interesting. Plus, then being able to follow him in the present as he works with Father Mendoza and being able to decide for oneself if the things he says and does seem plausible or if he seems like a complete nutjob could have been fascinating. As it stands, however, Deliver Us from Evil is a derivative and tedious movie that constantly finds itself stuck in the conventions of two subgenres. It's a movie that's absurd while trying to be consequential. 

And for those of you who might think I'm being too hard on it, let me end with the only truly unique thing about the film: THE DOORS. The music of the Jim Morrison and The Doors plays a major role in this film. Why? I have no idea. Father Mendoza briefly mentions that one way for a demon to enter the physical plane and possess someone is through a door - one of these is how The Jungler finds his way inside Santino while the group of soldiers investigate a cave in Iraq. But that's it! Why does the demon play hit songs from Jim Morrison's band? Does he just have a weird sense of humor? Maybe he just assumes everyone hates the keyboard. I don't know, but there are at least 3 or 4 songs from The Doors catalog that play in various ways throughout the movie. Whether Sarchie is hearing "People Are Strange" in his head or possessed Jane Crenna is babbling "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" after dropping her baby into a lion enclosure, The Doors are everywhere. It's not clever or subtle (in case you don't get the connection, closeups of the words "door" and "The Doors" in Sarchie's notes are cut together dramatically) and no one really comments on it apart from a few jokes early on. It also certainly doesn't serve the plot whatsoever. Why it has to be The Doors and couldn't be some Latin phrases or blood-curdling screeches or any other music ever is beyond me. It's literally one of the most baffling elements in a film I have ever seen. 

I hesitate to say I hated Deliver Us from Evil simply because the inherent ridiculousness of the majority of it was enjoyable on some level. But the prophet himself, Jim Morrison, once said, "Hatred is a very underestimated emotion." And who am I to argue?

2 out of 10

Loving What You Do: Thoughts on Jon Favreau's CHEF

I don't do it much anymore, but I used to watch the Food Network and the Travel Channel. Like a lot. Like a whole lot. Like so much that I could identify what episode of Man v. Food was coming on within the first 15 seconds and could tell you who was going to win this or that particular episode of Iron Chef (hint: it's probably Bobby Flay). And while I don't really watch either of those channels anymore, I still love food. I love eating food, I love cooking food and I love looking at food. The latter, commonly referred to as "food porn," is a recent discovery of mine. For those of you that don't know, it's basically when someone cooks something, takes a beautiful picture of it and then typically posts it online. I'm not sure exactly what's so satisfying about looking at food that someone else prepared and that I'll never actually get to try. I think it has something to do with proving that food can be an art form. Just like filmmaking or writing or painting or whatever, food can be a way to express oneself - to cut through all the bullshit in order to reveal and share something deeply personal with other people while discovering (or rediscovering) who you are. Ultimately, that's what Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) does with his "El Jefe" foodtruck. It's also why Chef is one of the most surprising and wonderful films of the summer. 

Carl Casper is a Miami-born chef who, after striking it big, moves to Los Angeles for a chance at something even bigger. When the film picks up, he's finally getting that chance as his restaurant is about to be reviewed by the city's most prominent food critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt). Popular with both the restaurant hostess Molly (Scarlett Johansson) and his staff (including John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale), Casper decides to try and blow Michel away with a brand new tasting menu. Unfortunately, the restaurant's owner (Dustin Hoffman) demands he "play the hits" and stick to the menu they have served for years. This in turn leads to Michel writing a scathing article about Casper's pedestrian efforts and how the chef has lost his originality and the fire he once showed in Miami. Hurt and with help from his son Percy, Casper sends what he believes to be a private message to Michel on Twitter which ends up starting a flame war that leads to Casper becoming a viral sensation and subsequently losing his job at the restaurant. Lost without prospects, Casper agrees to take a trip back to Miami with his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and Percy to spend more time with his son and to see Inez's other ex-husband (Robert Downey Jr.) for help. While sitting down to dinner with Inez and her father, Casper is inspired by an authentic Cuban sandwich and decides to get back to basics with a foodtruck in the hopes of rekindling the passion and artistic originality that Michel chided him for lacking. 

And that's about where the conflict of the film ends. Sure, there are a few little dust-ups here and there - Casper and his son clean out the food truck but get into a fight when Percy won't clean rotten food out of a perfectly good pan - but those are quickly resolved and forgotten. In fact, the majority of the final half of the movie is just Casper, John Leguizamo's Martin and Percy getting the foodtruck up to snuff and taking it out on the road. The truck doesn't break down, Casper teaches Percy to cook and despite being around scolding hot objects and sharp knives nothing bad happens to the kid. As viewers, we're programmed to believe that something bad is pop out from around the corner to throw the whole operation into panic but nothing like that happens. A cop comes to tell Casper he can't park the foodtruck at a specific location but the correct permits are shown and that's it. Even when the cop recognizes Casper as the guy on YouTube who has a breakdown at a restaurant and berates a food critic in front of a packed house, the most that results from it is that they take a few photos together. Typically, this type of storytelling would cause a film to fall apart. As Syd Field says in his famous book on screenwriting, "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character. Without character, there is no story. And without story, there is no screenplay." But with Chef, it not only works, it's the main reason I liked it as much as I did. 

Chef isn't about Carl Casper becoming a success again, sticking it to his former boss while finding a way to discredit Ramsey Michel and humiliate him in front of his 100,000 Twitter followers. It's about Casper doing something for himself again. It's about Casper finding a way to love his profession again and sharing that love with the people he cares about - and it shows. Half (maybe even more) of the shots in the film are of Casper or someone else cooking delicious looking food. I was worried in the beginning when a scene between Casper and Percy in a car was choppily edited together with a bunch of standard quick cuts back and forth between the front and back seats. However, when the subject of the frame is the food, the result is breathtaking. Carne asada, crawfish, vegetables of all ilks, barbecue, pastries, even a grilled cheese is filmed in a way that optimizes the beauty of the art Casper is creating. And the most important part? He's happy. 

In an early argument with Dustin Hoffman's Riva, the restaurant owner tells Casper, "If you want to do that artistic shit, do it on your own time." A message Favreau himself has undoubtedly received a number of times during his own career. Since the days of Made and Swingers, Favreau has been a director of mostly big budget entertainment. Films like Elf, Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Zathura and Cowboys and Aliens have come and gone with varying degrees of success. After Cowboys and Aliens flopped following internal problems with the Iron Man franchise, Favreau decided he needed to do something for himself. Sound familiar? The meta aspect of Chef isn't exactly subtle or nuanced. However, what I find the most interesting is the comparison of simply doing something for the love of doing it - doing something to make yourself happy. Like Casper, it feels as if Favreau did Chef in order to rediscover himself and to express his art with the people he loves - his audience. That's why the film works. That's why those shots of Casper cooking are so gorgeous. Not only is there love in the character for his cooking, there's love in the camera's lens for Chef. 

If Favreau decided to do Chef as a way to both express himself and do something that makes him love his profession again it shows. From choice of actors to the locations to the cinematography and the music selection, everything fits perfectly. There doesn't need to be conflict to tell the story, because the film's palpable honesty and sincerity is there to tell it. The best things in life are things you do out of love. Whether it be love for the material, love for the process, love for those who will see it and benefit from it or all of the above, when you do something simply for the love of doing it and you reveal something deeply real it is impossible to go wrong. Chef is an incredibly heart-warming film filled with joy and passion and love (and delicious, delicious food). And because it's clear how much enjoyment came out of creating it, it's impossible not to feel that enjoyment as you watch it. That and intense, jealousy-fueled hunger pangs. 

8.5 out of 10