A worthy addition to the Apes oeuvre

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2012)

I admit that I'm a huge "Planet of the Apes" fan. As a child, I loved all of the original films, and I even "went Ape for a day" when movie theaters showed all 5 original Apes films back-to-back in one day back in the mid-1970s. I'm also a fan of the Tim Burton "Planet of the Apes" film (which is far more faithful to the source novel than the others). So it was with a sense of trepidation that I viewed this latest "re-imagining." As it turns out, my fears were for naught. This film, which pretty much reconceptualizes "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (the 4th film in the original franchise), is a smart, exciting, and surprisingly sophisticated take on how humanity could engineer its own demise at the hands of another species. James Franco is solid in the lead as a researcher with a strong sense of ethics and a passion to develop a cure for Alzheimer's, a disease that plagues his father, played by the always brilliant John Lithgow. The real star of this film, however, is Andy Serkis, who gives life to Caesar, the chimpanzee who is torn between his love for humanity and his duty to his species—and whose performance is surely worthy of an Oscar nomination. Don't worry if this all sounds a bit hokey—it plays a lot better than it sounds. Add a star if you're a die-hard "Apes" fan.