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On the surface, this movie had a lot of things going against it. It’s sequel to a reboot, with a lot of CGI. But just like those damn dirty apes, it has overcome those obstacles and risen to the top of the food chain.

The story takes place 4 years after the outbreak of the deadly virus from the first movie. The apes have built a community in the wooded hills near San Francisco, lead by the alpha ape Caesar (CGI assisted Andy Serkis). They are strong, and growing more intelligent. They believe the humans have most likely died out, until they run into a group of them near their territory. We find out there is a group of survivors in San Francisco who are trying to use a nearby dam to send hydro electric power to the city. The two groups form a very shaky peace agreement, but distrust and players from within each group send them towards an all out war.

I had heard good things about this movie, but it far surpassed my expectations. First off, let me address the CGI. I often find CGI-heavy movies to be unengaging because I don’t believe the characters therefore I have very little feeling for them. In this case they used real environments and real actors to provide some of the more seamless CGI I have seen in movies. I ended up having  range of emotion toward the different ape characters. They did an especially good job with the large gorilla named Maurice.

The writing was great. There are a lot of big themes (fear, hate, love, war, hope) being addressed here, and they did a good job with it. All of the main characters were great, especially the apes. Gary Oldman was good as usual, Andy Serkis brings life to Caesar, and Koba was as good as any human villain.

Great writing, great acting, and top-notch CGI make this one to see.

Reviewed by: Phillip Lane on November 24, 2015