Escape From the Planet of the Apes

Impressions before seeing it
Even though I've had the awesome Blu-ray box set for a little while now, I had only seen the first two movies (and loved them). But after the way the second one ended, I had no clue how they could have done another three movies, so I literally didn't know what to expect.

How was it?
It started off well enough, with the same sort of opening as the first two, but boy did it go to some weird places. I'm not kidding when I say the entire first half of the movie is constructed as if it were a comedy. The writing, acting, and even the camera work are, in many places, working together to create intentional jokes and silliness. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it were a stand-alone movie, but obviously it isn't and the first two Planet of the Apes movies were nowhere near this hammy or light-hearted.

The second half was better because it was mostly dramatic and much closer to what these movies should be. I liked that the story was almost the exact negative of the first movie. Maybe that was the reason for the comedy, because the first one was so dramatic and they wanted to keep up with the opposites... More likely I'm just giving them too much credit.
If they're going to keep certain story elements for each movie, I was hoping for a cool ending reveal like in the first two, but Escape didn't really deliver in that department. I mean there was a reveal, it just wasn't a cool one. But being a big fan of the first two movies, I still had fun watching this because of some connections to those, and because my nerdiness is fairly loyal. ...Wow, I think I just got through this whole post without spoiling a single thing about the movie.

Recommendation
As of this point, I would suggest that anyone looking to get into these movies should consider stopping after the second one to avoid disappointment. However, there's still entertainment value here, and you may be curious enough to want to know what happens next, though in general this installment seemed unnecessary. I didn't hate it though, and I'm still planning to watch the last two. I'll let you know how that goes.