The Planet of the Apes movies have always been about how our planet has always been a planet of the apes, doomed by primitive tribalism. Matt Reeves takes this idea in a fascinating direction with a 10-year time jump since events in Rise of the Planet of the Apes to a clash between some of the last surviving humans and the intelligent apes led by Caesar (the remarkable Andy Serkis). Reeves and his screenwriters keep shifting the sense of where the audience's identification should be, and while it’s clear early on that this is a "War on Terror" allegory, the unfolding of that idea is more complicated. Reeves conjures a spectacle that has you questioning every moment where movies have conditioned you to cheer instinctively, because the heroism of a moment is so often defined by your allegiances. By Scott Renshaw