Trailer Breakdown: “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes”

Monkeys and explosions? Best day ever!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0wP5ZkaUGg

2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was, despite its super clunky title, one of our favorite movies of the last few years. Smart, gripping, emotional, and packed with memorable moments, it was a genuine – and pleasant – surprise to enjoy an Apes movie so much, especially after Tim Burton’s God-awful effort from 2001. The trailer for the sequel – the equally awkwardly-named Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes – hit the web today, and we are super excited for it. Check out our breakdown below.

SHOT 1

Classic post-apocalypse stuff – cars and buildings abandoned, everything overgrown, no people to be seen anywhere. Since the last movie ended with a deadly virus being unleashed on mankind, it’s probably safe to assume that humanity has taken a pretty big hit. Either that, or this is a national park after yet another government shutdown.

SHOT 2

Is that…is that a monkey concentration camp? Is that what that is? Or have the survivors taken inspiration from the last couple seasons of The Walking Dead and holed up inside a prison? Oh my God will there be monkey zombies??

SHOT 3

“We’ve been through hell together!” cries Gary Oldman to a crowd of shabby-looking survivors in what appears to be a half-demolished train station. “Four years fighting that virus, then another four years fighting each other! It was chaos!” Thanks for the exposition, Gary! That was super helpful!

SHOT 4

More survivors behind bars, looking scared. Not too many apes so far in this trailer, but some of these guys look pretty hairy, so maybe that’s enough..?

SHOT 5

Now we’re talking. Gary frickin’ Oldman, wildly firing an assault rifle! Clearly, he has not got time for this Mickey Mouse bullshit.

SHOT 6

This looks more like something from Jurassic Park than Planet Of The Apes, but we’re guessing this is some kind of fortress constructed by the simian crew. In the middle stands a very brave – or very foolish – man in a hat. Don’t go in there, man in hat!

SHOT 7

Boom! It looks like we’re going to see a lot of human-on-monkey violence in this movie. And let’s be honest, that’s the best kind of violence.

SHOT 8

This is Aussie actor Jason Clarke, who you might be familiar with from The Great Gatsby or Public Enemies. It’s the same dude in the hat from earlier – this, presumably, is the moment when he found out he had to walk into Monkey Central armed with nothing but a poncho.

SHOT 9

“I need to speak to Caesar!” Clarke bellows. Caesar, as you’ll recall, was the first of the super-intelligent apes – played by the ever-awesome Andy Serkis – and in this movie, he’s the leader of the ape army. Caesar’s definitely smart enough to discuss a truce between apes and humans, which Clarke’s character appears to be trying to instigate here, but will he actually consider it?

SHOT 10

…we’re guessing no. This is our first glimpse of Caesar in the trailer, and going by that war paint, peace is not the first thing on his mind (at a wild guess, we’ll bet the first thing on his mind is probably “bananas”, probably closely followed by “fling some poop at Gary Oldman”).

SHOT 11

Finally! Actual apes! Here, Caesar signals for his troops (or “troop”, really, if you want to get technical) to hold. Either that, or he went for a high five and someone left him hanging.

SHOT 12

Nope! Definitely signaling an attack. A monkey attack!

SHOT 13

BWAAAAAAAAAMMMMM. We just got goosebumps.