Set roughly ten years after brainy chimp Caesar (Serkis doing what he does best) leads an ape uprising on San Francisco, he has started a family and rules over the now tribal Apes who all inhabit the Muir Woods. Caesar stands as the apes ruler while his friends you may not remember from the first film, stand as his confidants. Koba the heavily scarred bonobo chimp has a long standing resentment of the humans who probed and experimented on him acts as mentor to Caesars teenage son Blue Eyes. Maurice the orangutan takes charge of the young apes education and teaches them the rules of their new world, most importantly, 'Ape must not kill Ape.' you could say both Maurice and Koba each represent a half of Caesars conscience, with the heavy decisions that befall Caesar he is often seen hearing advice from each of his friends, Koba however tends not to be as forgiving.
Enter the eventual human side of the story, the out break of ALZ-113 virus meant to cure Alzheimer's instead wiped out 99% of the human population and has been dubbed 'Simian Flu' however there is a small band of survivors apparently immune to the virus residing in the dilapidated ruins of San Francisco. Having burnt through nearly all of their energy, Malcom (Jason Clarke) takes a small group through the woods in an attempt to restart a hydro-electric dam. Thus begins the uneasy downwards spiral of trust between the apes. Caesar recalling the memories of his old foster father is slowly easing into assisting the humans much to the dismay of Koba.
Interestingly enough the seamless CGI and grand storytelling of course paves way for more sequels, I found myself being fine with an entirely CGI movie, the relationships between the apes feels so foreign yet close all at once. Compelling visually and one of the best credits I can give the film is that you forget a lot of this is built up on a computer, you're taken into the world and accept it for what it is. There are less ham handed call backs to the original series, I didn't feel like a Charlton Heston quote would improve any of it, the only thing that was a bit of a callback was the soundtrack which genuinely works, nothing gritty or what we're used to getting lately, but the beating of tightly wound war drums gives an authentic tribal feel in a concrete jungle.
Naturally the human cast take the back seat and none of them really remain that memorable, even Gary Oldman, veteran actor and a man who surely has merited an academy award by now doesn't have too much to work with. The true praise deservedly goes to the motion capture team who brought the apes to life, convincing behaviour and movement yet strangely human in parts, Andy Serkis once again proves he's the king of motion capture but Toby Kebbel gives him a run for his money in this one. Kebbel plays the ally turned antagonist Koba, a character that quickly became one of my favourite villains of the decade, sure he looks frightening and you tense up a little when he moves around the human characters but he's at his most terrifying when the film portrays how intelligent they have really become. Violent, sadistic and meticulously cunning, Koba is an oddly sympathetic villain who carries the explosive third act where things literally go apeshit.
