It looks like there may be a big summer movie after all.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the eighth installment of the Apes franchise, is now in theaters. Some are already calling it one of the better movies to be released this year.

While critics enjoyed the story and the action, they say the technology is what made the movie. Motion-capture graphics were used to assist Andy Serkis in his performance as Caesar. Essentially, every animal used in the film was computer-created.

The sequel begins a decade after James Franco’s character died in the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The remaining humans survived a deadly virus that wiped out much of the population, and reside in San Francisco. At the same time, a growing ape population has built their own community in the woods just outside of San Francisco.

Because of the motion-capture technology, 85 percent of the film was shot outside of a studio and in a real forest (a forest in Vancouver and some parts of New Orleans, not San Francisco).

According to Discovery, the technology uses a network of carefully calibrated monochrome cameras that track the movements of reflective markers attached to key spots on the bodies of actors and then use built-in processors to extract the precise coordinates of the markers. Later, animators connect the data about the marker locations with the same points on virtual characters, like shoulders, knees, and feet.

The two-hour film also stars Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Thus far, critics are impressed with the film. There is even talk of the first best actor Oscar nomination for a motion-capture performance.