Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this origin story is less sci-fi and more relationship drama, making it a surprisingly equal-opportunity choice for teens and parents. There's not much language, sexuality, or drinking, but the animal-human violence gets intense in the second half of the movie. Humans are afraid of the apes, so they shoot and poke them, and the threatened apes react defensively by smashing cars, throwing spears, pushing police officers off a bridge, and generally wreaking havoc on the Bay Area. There are a few pivotal death scenes for both species, but the movie's focus is less on the action and more on the nuanced question of how animals and humans can co-exist once there's no intelligence barrier.
Sexual
Content
A couple of sweet kisses and some flirting between Will and Caroline. They live together (it's not clear whether they're married), and they're shown in bed, but only sleeping.
Violence
In the opening scene, ape poachers are shown trapping apes in nets and chasing them with machetes and guns; shortly after that, a lab ape gets very aggressive with the scientists and is eventually shot and killed. The ape-versus-human violence is usually in retaliation for human-on-ape violence, and it includes apes grabbing and nearly breaking someone's hand, Caesar biting the hand of a neighbor who's pushing his owner, and apes fighting off police officers who surround and shoot them from a helicopter and the ground. The goriest scenes are of a man who's electrocuted (he's hosed down as he turns an electric stunning device on), a police officer who's thrown off a bridge by a gorilla, and a man plummeting into the water from a falling helicopter. An ape also dies protecting his leader. An elderly man succumbs to illness in his sleep, while a contaminated human dies from a strange virus.
Language
Language includes one use of "s--t," plus infrequent use of "hell," "ass," "goddamn," and "damn" (as in the famous line: "Get your damn paws off me, you damned dirty ape").
Social
Behavior
There are some thought-provoking messages in the movie, especially the idea about whether it's questionable to test animals with drugs that could injure them if it's for the benefit of curing human diseases. Animal equality is brought up via both the character of Caesar, who's of superior intelligence to his human age-counterparts, and the misery of the apes held imprisoned in the animal shelter. Will's decisions to keep Caesar, give his father the experimental drug, and bribe an official show the moral ambiguity of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. The tension between the pharmaceutical industry's drive for profits versus the good of helping the sick is another major theme.
Consumerism
The only brand prominently featured is an Apple MacBook/desktop computer.
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
A primate shelter worker and his friend are shown with drinks in their hands.
