6. A Planet Of The Apes Sequel That Wasn't Offensive
It seems like everything Andy Serkis touches is golden at the minute (aside perhaps from the Hobbit, but he was brilliant in that while it lasted), but even his presence as returning hero Caesar couldn't have allayed too many fears that the second new Planet Of The Apes film might follow the trend established by almost every single one of the sequels to the original film. The problem was always that the original film idea was as breath-takingly arresting as all attempts to hyper-extend it were offensive. Everyone wanted to see the immediate horror of a culture clash movie in which humans are the alien enemy, with the added kicker of the a familiar foe, but beyond the final revelation, there wasn't that much left in the tank. Did anyone really want to see how that society flourished? Could anyone write it compellingly? Nope. And the same was true of this new franchise: even though there was more story to tell after Caesar escaped back to the wild, did all of the bridges between this and the "first" Planet Of The Apes movie need to be built so consciously? Did we really need to see the day monkeys discovered wearing trousers? Or when they started to brush their teeth? Clearly not, but the sequel cleverly pushed the war element: this wasn't a Dawn so much as a Conquest for the planet, and even though the "human" moments between monkeys could have been a bit silly, the end result was a truly great sequel.