Movie Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

My dad loves Planet of the Apes. Growing up I watched the Charlton Heston movies all the time. I remember even thinking as a kid how neat the concept was. It was kind of my first foray into science fiction. So I've got a deep love and nostalgia for the franchise. 

Besides the original Planet of the Apes, my new favorite in the franchise was the 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was the first (I believe) movie in the franchise to start at the very beginning, how the apes became so smart. Flash forward a bunch of years and you have Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where the apes have grown their own civilization as the humans quickly dwindle. 

As a whole I really enjoyed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I think its a really good movie just not great. The apes were incredible. The graphics and acting (by Andy Serkis) was out of this world. Caesar was by far the most believable character in the movie and he was an ape. I thought the human actors were a lot less believable. You had the leader, the bad guy, the doctor, and the good guy. I wish the characters could have developed into more then just standard action movie characters.

Overall though I thought Dawn of the Planet of Apes was one of the best movies I've seen this summer but not nearly as good as Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I'm very excited still to see what they do with the franchise as they've got a blank canvas to work with.