Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

I only caught maybe the last half of the first movie which has the equally wordy title of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and that was enough to set the scene for me with this new release but have no fear, requiring to watch the first one is totally nullified with the informative script present here. For a movie full of monkeys, I found it pretty damn good! There are subtitles to be read for monkey sign language but that's not really a deterrent to me.

Most of the characters were pretty well developed and the acting pretty good, from the apes moreso than the humans surprisingly! Have to say that Gary Oldman is slightly wasted in his role, and probably would have been better as the "hero" human though that would mean changing the dynamics of some of the others. Most useless was the human "son", not really because of his ability but more because he wasn't given anything to do. You could have cut him out entirely or give his plot points to Kirk Acevedo's character. *shrug*

Don't mess with chimpanzee cavalry.

Andy Serkis as Caesar certainly steals the show though, and you'll definitely be looking forward to all scenes involving the chimp leader. I give it four and a half bananas out of five and think it is on the better end of the Planet of the Apes franchise (new and old). Surprisingly, I didn't see any bananas in the movie. Not sure I saw any real monkeys either! :P