The Apes franchise is one that’s been around for 43 years. The first film was released in 1968, starred Charlton Heston and a lot of people in really ridiculous ape costumes. Now we get to see what happened that started to ape-revolution. Throughout the franchise you hear mention of Cesar, now it’s time to see him actually begin to liberate his kind from the humanity.

While I’ve only seen the original 1968 film as well as the 2001 remake, but if the sequels to the original are as intentional as the franchise’s beginning then I can say that this may be the least communicative of the lot. It forgoes a lot of the very blatant social commentary that’s been prevalent in the franchise and allows itself to be a massive origin story about how the Apes actually gained the intelligence that we see in the very distant future when Heston and crew crash land.

It’s the first of the Apes franchise that makes the audience sympathetic towards the Apes. As we see Cesar, and all the others, being tested and mistreated in research facilities and backdoor petting zoos we begin to think the same thing that the first movie told us, that maybe animal testing isn’t that good a thing no matter what the hoped end result may be.

Putting the philosophical side of the general plot aside for a moment, this movie never stops being entertaining while at the same time working well within the realm of the cannon. The visual effects, designed by WETA, are amazing and as close to perfection that I believe anyone can do today. The apes are all so beautifully put on screen in a way that isn’t distracting at all.

What will bring this film to everyone’s attention isn’t the beauty, but the humanity. The filmmakers were able to make a movie about apes becoming the superior being, over ourselves, and make us cheer for our own demise. While there’re a select few human characters that are obviously bad people for the most part all of the people are reasonably innocent people, and we still want the apes to beat them into the ground.

I’m not sure whether it’s that we as people generally have this attachment to animals being mistreated, they’re living creatures and deserve a certain level of respect, but I believe that it came down to the fact that when I looked at Cesar I didn’t see an ape, I saw a person. I saw a living thinking being that had the ability to be reason as well as any other human being. Would I have thought differently if there was no genetic mutation and Cesar was just a regular ape that had moderately intriguing intelligence for a non-human? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I cared for him and I got chills down my spine as the film reached the “big” scene where the iconic Apes franchise line was finally said.

Rating: 9.0/10