The Lock Box: 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' Is A Swinging Success

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes/20th Century Fox

Throughout history, there have been only a handful of sequels that are considered to be superior over the first installments. Off of the top of my head, I could only think of 6; The Terminator: Judgement Day, Aliens, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight Rises, X2 and the most recent of which, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Now, we can add the sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, to that list-- or at least I can. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was a film on an epic scale. Not only because of the action scenes or the film's set pieces, but because the performances was incredible. The film was cast so perfectly, they really made you feel the tension between the two species, throughout the entire movie.

Set 10 years after the first installment, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes takes you inside the lives of the apes that have, more or less, become the dominant species, or at least close to it, as well as the handful of human survivors, stashed away in a corner in San Francisco.

Led by Caesar(Andy Serkis), the apes have built a type of utopian society near a fresh water supply, with tree houses that would put the ones you might've climbed to shame. With Caesar and his mate, Cornelia(Judy Greer), sitting at the head of the table of this evolved group of apes, Koba(Toby Kebbell), the human-hating test ape from the first film, is back and never far from his side.

All of the old favorites from the first film are back as well, and are ape-ier than ever, including: Maurice(Karin Konoval), Rocket(Terry Notary) and also introducing Blue Eyes(Nick Thurston), Caesar's adolescent son.

Humans, on the other hand, are just trying to survive, but at least have an arsenal of weapons behind them.

The film itself doesn't focus on one group over the other, as director Matt Reeves(Cloverfield) has done a fantastic job giving an equal amount of screen time to both species. It does, however, focus on two families in particular, Caesars'(of course) and Malcolm's(Jason Clarke).

Andy Serkis(left), Toby Kebbell(middle), Jason Clarke(right) and Karin Konoval(far right)

Keri Russell joins the cast as Ellie, Malcolm's girlfriend, as well as Kobi Smit-McPhee, who of which plays his son, Alex.

Malcolm and friend, Dreyfus(Gary Oldman), have built a society of their own. But when their towns' power supply starts running low, it is decided that another alternative energy source is needed.

The plot provides a bit of social commentary as well, with humans relying too much on fossil fuel or nuclear power as energy sources. After all, they had invested in learning about solar or wind energy, everyone could've lived happily ever after and war could've been prevented-- maybe. But they didn't and that's how the first chance encounter between the two species happens, and it's just that; chance and out of nowhere.

A small party, which happens to include Malcolm, stumbles on to ape territory, with some of the humans acting just as you'd figure they'd(we'd) act. What follows, starts a ripple effect that's felt by both groups, thus setting up what I feel will be the third and final movie in the series.

At no ones surprise, the stars af the show, no offense to the humans that played humans, are the apes, played by humans. How Andy Serkis does not have an Oscar or two already under his belt is beyond me. I certainly hope this film does help net him one. I mean, the guy's an amazing actor, and it's been proven time and time again that not just anyone can play a fictional character, whilst wearing a unitard, that will end up being completely unrecognizable after a film's post-production. I really hope Andy wins an Oscar for this; I really, really do

In the film overall, there are no weak spots with the amazing cast that's been put together. The film has it all; drama, action, amazing set pieces, a cohesive plot that's not all over the place(I'm looking at you, Amazing Spider-Man 2), amazing performances and fantastic CGI.

This film will receive, and deservedly so, without question, a 5/5 star rating from myself. I would gladly pay again and again to see this movie. If you haven't yet, I suggest you "swing" by your local theater.

Ha-ha.

The Lock Box: A Transfix With Netflix - The Bay (Spoilers)

The Bay

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the movies I've seen on Netflix. Now, I'm no Roger and Ebert, but I do a good and bad movie when I see one, and Netflix is full of both. So, this is the first Netflix review that I will be doing, as well as giving them their own sub-category within my blog. We'll call it: The Lock Box: A Transfix With Netflix. Catchy, right?

So, here we go.

First one is a documentary-style horror movie titled, 'The Bay.' Now, a lot of people have an issue with the whole first-person style of  shooting; motion sickness, doesn't let you focus on what's going on in the scene, etc.

I, personally, have no issue with these types of films. In fact, I very much enjoy them as I allow myself to get caught up in the moment, along with the characters.

With The Bay, it's not so much a horror movie because there are people captured by aliens, hunted by monsters or even mutilated by satanic clowns. It's scary because, like Contagion, it's entirely plausible.

The main character, Donna(Kether Donohue), is an online, intern field reporter for the local news station. Just so we're clear, the only reason I don't call her our protagonist is simply because, with the way this story was told, there isn't really a good guy. There really isn't a bad guy or antagonist, either. That is, unless you consider the government or companies that see no issue with polluting our ecosystem the bad guy; I'll leave that one up for discussion. Back to the story.

It starts off with actual news footage of incidents that have happened with groups of animals and different types of species dying in a mysterious and unexplainable way, followed by Donna being interviewed via online chat by an unknown person.

Donna's basically our narrator throughout the entire film. She sets up the story with talking about what happened in the weeks leading up to the "present" time in the film. The whole movie is basically one great, big flashback.

Anyway, the film gives you some exposition as to why things are about to go south with an online eco-fighter noticing how close a local farm is dumping chicken crap to the city's nearest water source.

Citizens are shown vomiting after competing in a crab eating contest with crabs fished from, you guessed it, the local bay. Also shown are men, women and children, that have been in contact with the water, breaking out with horrible blisters and legions with no one wanting to get near them for fear of catching whatever it is they have.

Jane McNeill in The Bay

Things pretty much start going from bad to worse as we meet Dr. Abrams(Stephen Kunken), as he contacts the CDC(Center for Diseases Control and Prevention) regarding the recent outbreak in his town.

The story also centers around two oceanographers, Jaquline(Nansi Aluka) and Sam(Christopher Denham). The couple(I guess...?) are the first ones that discover the cause of death in the bay and also the films first deaths, as well. After examining a fish caught from the bay, they find a mutated isopod, later confirmed by the CDC to be Cymothoa exigua, in the belly of said fish, eating it's way out. Mutated you say? Yes, from an apparent runoff of chicken excrement I had covered previously.

That is when the CDC are provided with more information as they are told about a nuclear reactor leak, which happened all of the way back in 2002, that was never properly cleaned up.

At this point in the film, every worker in the hospital that are in direct contact with any patient that pours through their doors, are wearing contamination gear, complete with masks and gloves.

People, infected or not, are either trying to flee the town, or are just deciding on killing themselves and their loved ones from the sheer panic.

And with that, I will decide to stop and NOT spoil the ending and also because my skins crawling and I don't like that feeling.

Like I had said, what makes this flick scary, is that it's entirely plausible, right down to the reaction of the general public. Regardless of how shaky the camera is, or how much you believe it could or couldn't happen, The Bay really makes you at least think about what could potentially happen with pollution to our drinking water.

With character development lacking, I'm gonna give this flick 3/5 stars. Even though it hasn't received much love from viewers, I'm going to suggest you check it out for yourselves. Especially if you want to feel like bugs are crawling over your body. It's definitely an underrated movie, as far as the horror genre is concerned.

If you have any suggestions for movies that you would like me to cover and review, comment below and we'll see if I'm paying attention to you or not(kidding!).