Until Guardians of the Galaxy proves otherwise, this is my favorite movie of the summer. Surprisingly heartfelt and emotional, while still being extremely entertaining and fun. What they did with making the apes feel animalistic yet still humanized is something I really don't feel I've seen in a film before, and the special effects rivaled Life of Pi. I truly couldn't tell if some of the apes were real, guys in suits (for closeups), or CG throughout (most likely).
It also made me go on a kick recently of watching all the original films, and man am I glad I did. It reminds me a lot of how the 2009 Star Trek enabled me to go back and watch The Original Series, yet imagine it as a more visually fantastic world. Looking past the cheesiness of the original Apes movies, there's a lot of fantastic acting and storytelling going on. And I never realized that the new films were actually retelling the story from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
All around great franchise that I'm glad I've been turned on to, and I'm already looking forward to the end of this prequel trilogy (and to seeing how far along they're going to take it after that).