You can't ask for a more atmospheric opening than that, nor one which more efficiently tells us everything we need to know (not least of the reasons that Dawn. begins, with one of the very best "montage of news reports" exposition bursts that I have seen in many days, as fragments of talking head segments appear beneath a map of the earth showing the vectors by which the flu spread and also depicting the fading out of lights representing human civilisation, so that at end, when we arrive back where we started on the West Coast of the United States, it's all dark and empty and cold, as Michael Giacchino's score mournful taps out a few dying notes. takes place many years after the event which caused the balance of power to shift away from a human-dominated Earth: the release of a lab-created biological agent called "simian flu" in the media, the exact beat upon which Rise. Like that rather glum, under-budgeted affair, Dawn. is in a great many respects an uncredited remake of 1973's Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the worst of the now eight Apes films (yes, worse than than the deadening Tim Burton film from 2001, which at least had some great design and make-up Author's Note, July 2017: I have since thought better of that opinion). It's all the more impressive given that Dawn. In fact, not only is it a more than worthy successor to 2011's surprisingly good Rise of the Planet of the Apes - and I think it's appropriate to point out, though I am not the first to do so, that there's more rising than dawning in the newest movie - it's pretty commandingly the best movie in the sprawling, disconnected franchise since the very first Planet of the Apes in 1968. Good sequels are rare good sequels to prequels are rare enough that I can't remember the last one prior to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which isn't merely good, it's in some ways outright terrific.
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