Debate Magazine
MTV dot com
The critics and the people have spoken, and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is a bona fide summer success. The sequel to the 2011 James Franco reboot “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a stunning achievement for motion capture acting and definitely an action-heavy blockbuster, but much of the buzz surrounding the film has largely centered around how refreshingly profound and thoughtful it is — particularly on the issue of violence. Gun violence, to be exact. “You’ll hear instances where actors have said, ‘I won’t appear in a movie poster with guns,’ or directors will say, ‘I will never put a gun in my movie,’ but there certainly aren’t many examples where [blockbusters] tackle this head on,” Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told MTV News over the phone. “In this case, it very compellingly shows that before the gun was introduced, a fight was a fight. And now, when a gun is introduced, it has a much greater chance at turning lethal.”
