I loved this movie! I bought it sight-unseen on the strength of its predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I was waiting until I got to R so I could watch them back to back. I still might do that because neither of these movies is a one-and-done. They are fantastic blockbusters that also manage to make me care about characters that aren't even real in the sense that they're more than fictional, they also have no proxy except by digital means. Andy Serkis is so beyond words in terms of describing his talent. The man deserves more than empty platitudes. He brought Caesar to life, not just to motion. He is the beating heart of this film and I wish there was more at stake here than just a Visual Effects Oscar. After the ravages of the simian flu, Caesar and his tribe have built a home for themselves in the forest outside San Francisco. There, he and his family can live in peace with the other hyper-intelligent apes. That is until his son, Blue-Eyes (Nick Thurston), accidentally runs into a group of human survivors. Violence is narrowly avoided and both groups are thrown into a tizzy of fear. Koba (Toby Kebbell) argues that the apes should just kill all the humans and be done, but Caesar hesitates. On the human side, Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) wants to kill all the apes so they'll be safe, but Malcolm (Jason Clarke) disagrees. He sees a spark of something in Caesar and wants to try diplomacy. The humans need to pass through the apes' territory in order to jumpstart the hydroelectric facilities and restore their power.
This is beautifully done, and might have made my top 10 list if I had seen it last year. Thank God for the Oscars' token inclusion of summer crowd-pleasers. Do I think it will win? I don't know. It's facing some stiff competition from Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy. I think we can rule out The Winter Soldier but I haven't seen Interstellar, so I have no idea. It's my front-runner for the time being, though.
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