Gorilla warfare: Behind the visuals of 'Planet of the Apes'

As Caesar sits astride a horse rallying his legions to battle you'd be forgiven for thinking you were watching a Roman-era war epic -- except that the protagonist is a chimpanzee.

"War for the Planet of the Apes," the third installment of the rebooted simian sci-fi franchise, opens on July 14 to reviews lauding some of the most breathtaking visual effects ever seen in cinema.

Behind the photo-real apes is Weta Digital, a pioneering Wellington-based CGI studio founded by Peter Jackson that has seen its reputation grow steadily since its groundbreaking performance-capture work on his "The Lord of the Rings" movies.  
  
Filmed against the stark snowy vistas of Alberta and British Columbia, "War" sees director Matt Reeves unleash the rapidly evolving simians into a world boiling over with divisions and rage.

A band of soldiers led by a battle-hardened loose cannon -- Woody Harrelson channeling Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz -- launches an all-out attack to destroy the apes once and for all.

The movie is driven by Andy Serkis as the majestic Caesar, reprising a role for which he has drawn even more acclaim than for his other digital characters, Gollum in "Rings" and King Kong.

"Physically in this film, Caesar is much more upright and he uses his hands a lot more now, so he's more like a human being in ape skin," Serkis says in the production notes.

"But as his intelligence and abilities have grown, the things he feels and remembers have become more daunting to him."  
         
As in the previous films, Serkis wore a gray bodysuit and facial recognition dots that captured the tiniest nuances of movement, gesture and emotion of the apes.

The 53-year-old actor, whom many believe should have won...