Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

This first sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes sees director Matt Reeves go much bigger in terms of scale to tell the next chapter in the story. Most of the human population has been wiped out by simian flu, while superintelligent chimpanzee Caesar (a motion-captured Andy Serkis) is now the leader of a large ape colony and is teaching his companions to live in peace: "Ape Not Kill Ape" is the first rule. But then the pesky humans turn up to spoil things. Caesar is torn between his desire to protect his ape family, and compassion towards the beleaguered humans. But human-hating right-hand-ape Koba (Toby Kebbell) determines to show him the error of mixing with mankind. What follows is an epic, Shakespearean tale of betrayal, deception and brutality that plays out like a Greek tragedy. Once again, the ape characterisation is incredible, with the expanded cast of simian performers managing to convince with their expert body language, assisted by some top-end CGI. The human characters may be rather underdeveloped by comparison, but this remains a storming, soulful blockbuster that has brains as well as heart.