Review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) by Mrnice — 09 Aug 2014

It aims for spectacular action and set pieces, and achieves that to a large extent. But I didn't find the story as interesting as in 'Rise...' because now the main developments have played out in the earlier film (where it was super interesting to see how apes could plausibly become super-intelligent and escape captivity), and the story left to 'Dawn.

..' is how things escalate from there. Which is pretty easy to imagine. Some humans and some intelligent apes have a conflict and it escalates. No matter how much action and drama you push along with such a story, it's limited in its potential.

I had fun interpreting it as a metaphor for the Iraq oil invasion though. Although an insane interpretation, it fitted so well for the first half of the movie. And if seen as propaganda against Islam, the movie gets the subtext it otherwise lacks.