The new movie is being called "the best blockbuster of the summer" and I have to agree.
It's not supposed to be like this. The eighth in a series of movies is not supposed to be better than the original movie - or any of the other sequels, but as the title suggests Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a new beginning for a franchise that ran out of fuel.
The story picks-up where the previous film left off. A virus has wiped out most of the human race and left the apes able to talk.
They're in the hills near San Francisco and haven't seen a human in a decade, but a hardy few have survived because they are immune to the deadly contagion that killed everyone else. The survivors need power, so their leader played by Gary Oldman sends a group to revive an old power plant which is guess where?
Andy Serkis as Caesar in a scene from the film, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes." (AP Photo/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)
The two sides distrust each other, but thanks to Caesar, given life by Andy Serkis, an uneasy peace is achieved until an ape named Koba, who was tortured by humans in the previous film, sparks a war that gives us the action fans of the series expect.
More than an hour passes before this big scene and for some of you that will be too long to wait, but for anyone who's ever complained about a lack of heart and soul in blockbusters, this is Hollywood's answer: not the "dawn" of a new day exactly, just a better way to go.
A few years ago there was much talk that computers might one day replace actors. That hasn't happened, of course, but "Dawn of the Planet of Apes" shows how man and machine can work together to produce a great performance. I will long remember Serkis as Caesar.