15 of the best movie prequels ever

The 15 best movie prequels ever, in no particular order, are:

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Despite being saddled with an unwieldy title created by Fox's marketing department, this recent prequel to Planet of the Apes is an engaging effort.

James Franco plays a scientist who's trying to develop a cure for Alzheimer's; in the course of his experiments he creates the genetically mutated chimp Caesar, played by Andy "Gollum" Serkis using CGI performance capture.

The human drama is a bit trite, but Caesar's journey from pet to person to leader of an ape army is compelling stuff, thanks to Serkis' nuanced performance. Time to give performance capture its own category at the Oscars...