“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”

roddy mcdowall and andy serkis
In 2001, Tim Burton remade the peerless 1968 classic, Planet of the Apes. The world, appropriately enough, retched in response; it was terrible.

However, despite collective disinterest in such a thing, in 2011 another reboot of the franchise was attempted; this time with director Rupert Wyatt’s, James Franco starring Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The world was shocked to discover that this newest attempt — which was sort of a quasi-remake of 1972’s excellent Conquest of the Planet of the Apes — was actually a quality film. People went to see it, and it made a lot of money.

And now — with Rise having been a hit — it’s sequel time, and time for a quasi-remake of 1974’s (pretty universally regarded as lousy) Battle for the Planet of the Apes. This time, though, there’s little doubt that the remake not only surpasses the original of which it’s a quasi-retread, it surpasses its immediate predecessor, and nearly any other film to have thus far come out of Hollywood this year.

The top-flight and smart sci-fi/action flick is currently carrying a respectable 79 Metascore on Metacritic, and is expected to earn barrel-loads of money at this weekend’s box office.

The film stars — with a lot of help from state of the art motion-capture technology — Lord of the RingsAndy Serkis as Caesar; the main ape from Rise, who is in this film the leader of a new generation of apes, some — like him — more highly evolved.

The excellent ensemble also includes Gary Oldman as the leader of the human characters.

We could provide the same plot outline you can easily find everywhere else, but instead we’ll just direct you to the unusually entertaining trailer below. And also remind you that by clicking through the highlighted names above you will be led to PeekYou profiles full of links to social pages, home pages, videos, interviews, articles, and much more.