There are two excellent options at the movies this weekend, one a wide release blockbuster and one a specialty opening that, based on all accounts, is going to be sticking around for a very long time and probably headed to the Oscar stage next year, even at this early date. But Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the first showing, which got pretty great reviews this week, scoring a 91% Fresh rating and a 79 on Metacritic (which is actually pretty high for them, especially for a franchise release). The first movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011, was no slouch, but most are saying this one is better, darker and sets the stage perfectly for the next entry in the series:
"It's a satisfying movie and an example- a dispiritingly rare one these days- of what mainstream Hollywood filmmaking can still achieve." (New York TImes)
"Dawn's vision of masses of intelligent apes swarming the screen as masters of all they survey is even more impressive than it was the last time around and reason enough to see the film all by itself." (Los Angeles Times)
"Within the fertile area between promise and execution, Dawn is dynamite entertainment, especially in the rousing first hour." (Rolling Stone)
If Dawn got great reviews all around though, it's nothing compared to the absolutely astonishing reception that Richard Linklater's Boyhood is getting in limited release. The movie was highly praised at Sundance, but that now turns out to be something of an understatement, as it still maintains a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes (with 95 reviews in no less) and an unbelievable 99 on Metacritic, which makes it, and I'm not kidding, one of the best reviewed movies of all time (comparable with only classics on those sites). The praise isn't just high- words like "masterpiece" and "American classic" are being thrown around, which means this movie is very likely headed for the Oscars, even though summer releases rarely do that well. But I can't imagine any other movie this year getting this kind of reaction. You're going to want to check this one out (if only just to see if the reviews are overrating it):
"There isn't anything else quite like 'Boyhood' in the history of cinema, although that wouldn't matter one-fifth as much if it weren't a moving and memorable viewing experience in the end." (Salon)
"'Boyhood' is an epic masterpiece that seems wholly unconcerned with trying to be one." (USA Today)
"I can think of few feature films in the history of the medium that have explored the power, and the melancholy, of film's intimate enmeshment with time in the way Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood' does." (Slate)
"Richard Linklater's coming-of-age tale is the best movie of the year, a four-star game-changer that earns its place in the cultural landscape." (Rolling Stone)
"There's a rough-edged, organic quality to 'Boyhood' that recalls the work of those European helmers Linklater so admires: Fassbinder, Bergman, Bresson." (Variety)
