If there were no apes riding on horses into battle with automatic guns, no one would watch Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. There are tropes on tropes on tropes: rash son trying to choose the right way, best friend betraying another for power, noble savage forced into a clash with civilization, having to choose allegiances. I thought that Pochantos would appear and sing Colors of the Wind. It felt like there was a computerized movie generator determining which combination of plots would lead to the flashiest action packed conflict. The evil characters are just so one dimensional that even one character knows that he is a stereotype. The ape society is more interesting than the human one. The only compelling character is Caesar, and since he is not the main focus of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I was bored with the film as opposed to Rise of the Planet of the Apes where I watched it two times in a row while weeping profusely. It did not help that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes created a heavy-handed false equivalency plot to show that the apes are as bad as the humans. Some humans are bad and think that they are superior whereas the apes were tortured and abused for years. Sure it results in the same evil, but one is a jerk, and the other needs therapy. I think that the metaphor is beginning to fall apart because the ones creating it can’t distinguish between institutional oppression and just plain old prejudice and/or cause and effect. There were some chilling moments when Koba puts on the mask of an obedient and goofy animal to survive then takes off the mask. I thought that Boardwalk Empire also did that effectively in the last season with the chain gang, but the rest of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes does not show a similar sophistication and descends into genocidal, power hungry maniac in seconds. If you love the concept, see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes otherwise don’t expect the same consistent, innovative chills of the first prequel.