Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (4½ Stars)

It's worth shopping around. I buy most of my films from Amazon. I often check Ebay, but rarely buy there because Ebay's prices are usually higher than Amazon's, whether it's "Buy It Now" offers or auctions. In this case Amazon charges £11.10 for the film on Blu-ray, Ebay's prices are about £10, but I bought it for £6 from HMV as part of their "5 for £30 Blu-ray" offer. If I were greedy I could have bought five copies and sold them on Ebay for a profit. Come to think of it, maybe that's what everyone else does.

After Tim Burton's disastrous remake in 2001, I'm glad that the studios decided to reboot the film series in 2011. I admit that I'm a purist who loves the original films (especially the first two), but the new series has enough to say that it's worth telling the story again. Maybe it's more correct to say that it's telling a new story, because it's very different to the original films. The original films were the first example of a bootstrap paradox being used in films, starting with "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" in 1971. The most famous film example of a bootstrap paradox is the creation of Skynet in "Terminator 2" (1991), but there's already a hint of bootstrap paradox in the first Terminator film in 1984. Skynet sent a Terminator back in time to prevent their enemy John Connor being born, but if John Connor had never been born the Terminator wouldn't have been sent back, so John Connor would have been born anyway. Ouch!

This is a fantastic film. Maybe I should have given it five stars. The only reason I deducted half a star is because it's slightly less good than "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Let's see how I rate it next time I watch it. I'm allowed to change my mind.