As intelligent as the first

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2011)

I have seen some commentaries that regard this film as being not as intelligent as the first, that is unfair and it shows that the people who viewed this movie haven't got the point of it.
Wyatt wisely made the decision to leave the philosophy to the 1968 POTA, and instead channeled all of his creative powers to make this movie a thought exercise, to create a possible scenario of how the events in the 1968 POTA came to be. Now because of this people have said that it isn't as intelligent as its philosophically minded predecessor, but lets look at some of the differences.
In the 1968 POTA the characters were roughly static the whole time, so Taylor was a misanthrope from beginning to end, Zaius was a reactionary from beginning to end and so on. That was done for a good reason, such static characters were primarily designed to flesh out the moral dilemma behind the movie.
In Wyatt's movie character development takes center stage, all the attention is given to Caesar, he is carefully developed and is highly believable, unlike the characters in POTA he is left to develop naturally, reacting to what is around him. I might also add that in Wyatt's movie there are some interesting and thought provoking elements. A certain negation has extreme value, and marks the divide between humans and apes, as does the attitude of Caesar regarding warfare near the end. Its hard to say without spoilers but those two elements are the building blocks of the future POTA society.
Another thing that I liked was that this movie is the inverted correspondent of the 1968 POTA. How so? Well think of it this way, in POTA Earth's dominant species are the primates, in this one humans. In POTA Taylor is a human misanthrope who has no belief left in his fellow humans. In Rise Caesar is an ape that believes in the strength of his kind, a patriot if you want. In POTA the main characters that support Taylor are 2 ape scientists and their son, of which the greater role is given to Zira In Rise Caesar is also helped by a couple, this time human, although both are to degree scientists (even Caroline) but this time the one with the greater role is given to Will Rodman. Also note that instead of a son, here we have a child. There is an inverse correspondence between Jacobs and Zaius, Jacobs is very much open minded and has no problem what so ever with intelligent primates, Zaius on the other hand is closed, dogmatic, and is afraid of intelligent humans like the plague. The water hose scene in both movies is also relevant.
Taking all of these things into account, we can clearly see that this movie is just as intelligent as the first. Wyatt hasn't made a sequel, or a reboot, in my opinion he has completed the Apes series, with a compelling and believable story.