Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves, 2014)

The second part of the Planet of the Apes reboot series starts with newsreels cursorily explaining that most of the world's human population has been wiped out by a genetically-engineered disease, which conveniently allows an equal struggle to unfold between the smart(-ish) simians led by Andy Serkis's Caesar and humans holed up in the ruins of San Francisco. It is at once more intelligent and less interesting than its precursor: there is more focus on the political aspects of the confrontation between the species, and yet the story arc itself is purely by the numbers, with an ape-human clash followed by an ape against ape one. The clear improvement in the CGI does mean that Serkis can now actually act with his face through the FX, so it's a shame that for the most part his character has become less articulate in verbal terms. The plot respects its own internal logic only insofar as it doesn't interfere with the imperative to get to the next scene.

5/10