I took my son and his friend to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I have watched the original Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston, the remake with Mark Wahlberg, and the prequel Rise of the planet of the apes with James Franco. All of these were great, but I loved this one the most. It is amazing to see the advances in technology and the changes in the depiction of the apes from the original to now.

Unfortunately the 3D aspect was out of focus for the first few minutes of the movie, and I didn’t get to see it as I was alerting the movie staff (at the request of one rather annoyed boy.) But I did love that the opening scene and the ending scene were virtually the same. Both fully focusing on Caesar and the spectacular imagery of his face.

The apes were simply superb. I am in awe of the visual effects created by New Zealand’s own Weta Digital.  But I must say that the scene of Koba riding the horse into battle with guns blazing was my favourite. I mean, who couldn’t love a completely-over-the-top, insane scene like that?

As for the plot, it follows the story of the humans and the apes alike. There were good human characters and bad human characters. There were good ape characters and bad ape characters. And there were ones in between, easily swayed by stronger characters. The conflict of who to trust and how much to trust them was evident on both sides.

Simply put, I loved this movie, as did my son. I can’t wait for War for the Planet of the Apes to be released in 2016.