I watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes last night. Holy fuck. That movie was excellent. I was a huge fan of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I think this one topped it. I really liked the fact that there was more footage of the apes than there was humans. I did think the humans became too human-like by the end of the movie, but I'll let it go.
The only thing that really didn't make sense to me was the ape population. It seemed way too big for the amount of time that had gone by.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I think they needed to show them in a more human way by the end just for presentation purposes, otherwise we'd have had a finale with apes angrily doing sign language at each other.
I didn't mind them talking a little bit, and they did it pretty well overall. Apparently the original concept had them talking a lot more naturally and had the apes as more generic villians, before the new director stepped in and made it awesome instead.
I assume the ape population wasn't just derived from the small group in Rise, but that they'd managed to find more apes from somewhere. Without giving it too much thought, I can accept that they somehow managed that in the decade inbetween.
They're valid points, but I also thought the movie was excellent, and if those are the biggest concerns coming out of a movie about talking apes, I think they've done a great job.