At the last few movies I have seen in the theater, one of trailers shown every time has been for the newest installment in the Planet Of the Apes series. Every time I see it, the first thought through my head has been “Wait—they’re still making Planet Of the Apes movies?”
To be fair, that has been my first though every time there has been a new Planet Of the Apes movie released in recent years.
Apparently this new film that I keep seeing trailers for will be the fourth in the current series. A quick check of Wikipedia informs me that this series in now only one film shy of the original series' five films. When I was growing up, Channel 4 in Indianapolis seemed to be playing one of those old movies at least once a week and I got in my head that they were basically endless.
My curiosity piqued, I sat down and watched 2011’s Rise Of the Planet Of the Apes, the movie that kicked off this current series. I was about a third of the way through it when I realized I had watched at least part of it five or six years ago. I am pretty sure I did not watch the whole thing and neither that fact nor my failure to remember it is an indictment of the movie itself. Rather, my kids were little, I had barely any time to watch movies, and I was so constantly tired that I hardly remember a bunch of the stuff I watched regardless of whether it was good or bad.
As it turns out, Rise Of the Planet Of the Apes is not half bad. It now has me interested in watching the rest of the series.