It's a slow paced movie, largely dramatic and character-driven, as I said above. Many touching scenes that remind you of what was attempted in King Kong, but without the massive dose of cheese. There were moments of real beauty, tragedy, sadness, and exaltation. And once the action started, it was a hell of a ride.
There was one moment that explicitly referenced the source material, and if you try hard enough you can probably figure out which moment that was ... but the way it was reversed here was a nice touch. It gave me a moment of spine-tingling holy shit-ness:
Spoiler
An asshole animal handler has a showdown with the lead chimp right before the big ape riot, and he thinks he can handle the chimp because he's always been able to before. But this one has been hiding how intelligent he is. When the chimp grabs his arm in a show of mastery, the human animal handler says the classic line, "Get your hand off me you damn dirty ape!" And the chimp responds menacingly, "No." This is the first time he has spoken, and it is just as surprising for the audience as it is for the animal handler. But what's cool is that this line was the same as the first time Heston's character spoke in the original movie, to the utter shock of his ape captors. So this time we get to feel their sense of surprise by having this moment reversed and the chimp being the one who shocks us by speaking. Nice touch.
