Rise of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox)
Rated PG-13 for violence, terror, some sexuality and brief strong language.
Starring James Franco, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, Tom Felton.
Written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, based on the novel "La planete des singes" by Pierre Boulle.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
GRADE: B
REVIEW:
Okay, humans, prepare to bow down to your simian overlords. Since just about everybody knows the premise behind the Planet of the Apes movie series, dating back to the original 1968 Charlton Heston version. It's a futuristic world where apes evolve in intelligence and ability to become master over the human race. But how did we "blow it all up" and hand the planet over to the chimps and gorillas? That's the idea behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes, released on Friday.
James Franco stars as Dr. Will Rodman, a scientist who's working on a gene therapy to cure Alzheimer's and other mental conditions. Will works at a corporate lab headed by the greedy Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) where scientists test their product on chimps. When one of the apes goes ape, Jacobs orders all the other animals destroyed, but Will saves a baby chimp unknown to his boss. Will takes the baby monkey home where he lives with his father (John Lithgow), who suffers from Alzheimer's. Once home, Will notices that the baby chimp (named "Caesar" by his dad) shows signs of extreme intelligence. Will realizes that Caesar (Andy Serkis, better known as Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) got his intelligence from his mother's genes who was injected with the experimental medicine before she died. Will devises a plan to test the serum on his dad, who is miraculously cured overnight.
As Caesar grows he becomes more and more aware that he is treated as inferior to humans, even though he loves and is loyal to Will, his dad, and Will's new girlfriend Caroline (Freida Pinto), a veterinarian who helps care for the chimp.
Everything appears to be going along just fine until Will's dad relapses, proving that the serum needs revamping. When Ceasar attacks a neighbor to defend Will's dad during one of his Alzheimer's episodes in the street, he is hauled in by animal control officers and forced to live in an ape sanctuary, headed by a man named John Landon (Brian Cox) and his brat son Dodge (Harry Potter's Draco Malfoy - if you drop the English accent, not much difference there). As Caesar rots away in the "sanctuary" (more like a prison to your more intelligent ape types), Will tries to develop a new serum to save his dad. The problem with the old serum was that is populates into one's genetic make up via a virus. The old serum's virus was eventually attacked by natural antibodies, so Will develops a more aggressive virus in the hope that it will be more effective.
While in the sanctuary, Caesar makes enemies and friends, but hatches a plan to escape and get hold of more serum to share with his ape family, so that they can break out and live in freedom.
Caesar succeeds, as he and his new troops engage in a battle on the Golden Gate Bridge with cops that does not end well, despite Will's efforts to calm the situation. Caesar also has a few surprises in store after he shows the effects of the more powerful serum.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is at times an interesting film with a few things to say about humans and their treatment of animals, although I doubt any legitimate corporation would engage in the kind of unethical practices seen in the movie. The plot moves along very slow during the second act, but gets more interesting as the movies comes to an end. At times, it seems like a 90-minute PETA promotion.
Franco and others deliver adequate performances that are overshadowed by the computer-generated Caesar as modeled by Serkis, who should eventually get some sort of special Oscar for modeling movie CG characters. The problem is that you are constantly aware that the expressions and actions of Caesar and other apes seen throughout the movie are basically cartoons, which makes the premise of Rise of the Planet of the Apes a little hard to fathom.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a "prequel" to the 2001 version of Planet of the Apes (starring Mark Wahlberg), and is a set up for perhaps even more ape-like movies in the future.
Another note: There are some scary violent moments that might be little too much for toddlers and preteens who think chimps are cute, so you might want to heed the PG-13 rating.
