Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Review: 10 Awesome Moments

10. The Silent Opening 15 Minutes

After a brief opening section in which various news snippets explain how the Simian Flu has decimated humanity, we pick our story up 10 years later, as the Apes have flourished while led by Caesar. Reeves smartly elects to show the Apes as a community almost entirely through sign language during this opening 15-minute sequence, as we reconvene with Caesar, his family and the settlement of Apes as a whole. The near-silent approach is a charming and daring way to open the movie, letting audiences know what they're in for yet in a way that feels completely natural within the movie's context. So simply effective is this opening section that it's almost a shame when Reeves has to introduce the human characters: they ironically lack the same gravitas as Caesar and co., which is of course a massive testament to Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell and the performance capture technology as a whole. We would have been perfectly happy for the entire movie to simply follow the frictions within the Ape community without minimal human involvement, but of course, that's just wishful thinking... For Reeves to believe in the audience's capacity to accept so little spoken dialogue, especially at the start of the movie, is a testament to his respect for audiences, rather than simply condescending and pandering to the lowest common denominator.