Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This terrific follow-up to 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes bests what was a good film by matching clear, evocative themes to sublime digital effects.

Stark, simple dramatic forms that stretch back centuries are tied to the photo-realistic scenes of genetically evolved apes clashing with the remnants of humanity.

Words on paper and visual information inside a hard drive actually prove to be compatible.

The best Hollywood blockbusters this year have pivoted on the unexpected, whether it’s the comparative restraint of Godzilla or the rapid-fire invention of The Lego Movie, and Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes does the same.

It’s an action movie where you’re actually invested in the characters, whether they’re apes or humans.

Empathy is the film’s secret weapon, which is telling since the protagonists on both sides lack it.

Dawn begins a decade after the intelligence-boosted chimpanzee Caesar (Andy Serkis) has led his ape followers to freedom in the forests north of San Francisco.

The virus – dubbed Simian Flu – accidentally derived from experimental drugs tested on the apes has destroyed humanity, leaving the empty metropolis overgrown and the apes free to form their own society.

Some speak, the rest use sign language.

When a band of human survivors led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) enter the apes’ land, heading for a hydroelectric dam they need to restart because fuel for generators is virtually spent, violence marks the first meeting.

Throughout the film those who try to accommodate the two species are undercut by an embrace of anger and violence.

There’s a simmering tension in every single interaction.

The motion-capture technology used on Rise has been expanded, with more actors playing apes who were finished in post-production so that they would have genuine emotion and authentic features.

Serkis supplies the richest performance, with Caesar now a leader and a father, with his concern for his oldest son, Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston), matching Malcolm’s protective view of his teenage son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

Rise made barracking for the misunderstood and mistreated apes easy – their liberating escape across the Golden Gate Bridge was exhilarating – but Dawn has a darker, politically astute viewpoint.

Having been a revolutionary leader, Caesar struggles to control those he empowered.

His deputy, the bonobo Koba (Toby Kebbell), wants to attack the humans before they grow strong, and strives to foster conflict.

Koba was the nickname of Joseph Stalin, who succeeded Lenin in post-Revolutionary Russia and unleashed a nightmarish rule, and the idea that the apes can build a better society than the humans is shown to be tenuous.

A lust for power and need for retribution are not exclusive to any one species.

Koba has it and so does Malcolm’s fellow survivor Dreyfus (Gary Oldman).

The idea of two rival colonies on the edge of America recalls the story of Pocahontas and the British colonisation 500 years ago, and the script mostly ties the underlying ideas and mass set-pieces together with ease.

“Fear makes others follow,” Blue Eyes says when Koba goes to war, and the battle scenes accentuate the dreadful loss on both sides and the atrocities that follow.

This is a breakthrough for Reeves, who previously oversaw the monster flick Cloverfield and the keenly felt adolescent vampire flick Let Me In (with Smit-McPhee).

The film, especially in the woodlands, has an atmospheric look that embraces 3-D technology, and he shoots a climactic face-off with long, graceful takes and establishing master shots that are the antithesis of the usual fragmented, incoherently edited action scene.

Reeves unintentionally paints himself into a corner once or twice: what are meant to be iconic images that appeal to the geeky fanboy audience every science-fiction production needs – try an ape on a horse, firing machine-guns with both hands – look slightly ludicrous amid a drama about the guilt that comes with surviving loss.

“They cut me. Tortured me,” Koba reminds Caesar, and it’s clear that Dawn manages to remove this impressive new Planet of the Apes from the shadow of Franklin J. Schaffner’s original 1968 adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s novel, not to mention Tim Burton’s misguided 2001 remake.

The novelty factor of talking apes ruling man has been eclipsed.

It’s worth noting that this ambitious, emotionally complex blockbuster arrives mere weeks after the wretchedly bad Transformers: Age of Extinction, which unfortunately is nearly everything Reeves’ film isn’t.

The two movies, made for the same vast audience, are as incompatible as the apes and humans.

Why do we get so many bad mega-movies and so few great ones?

In Hollywood, fear really does make others follow.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is now screening at Arcadia Cinemas. See advert page 2 for details.