A Silent Movie

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2012)

The most involving element of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is the silent film that unfolds at the heart of it.
Caesar is an orphaned test tube chimp taken in by a human after an accident causes his mother's death. He grows up and, as a result of experimentations, displays amazing cognitive abilities. After his natural protective tendencies get the better of him when he attacks some humans, he is placed in an animal center where he is bullied by other chimps. Feeling bitter over being abandoned, he uses his superior intelligence to devise a plan to lead his primate inmates in breaking out of the center.
It's unfortunate that much of the forward movement of the plot is dependent on the conveniently careless mistakes of the scientists. James Franco and Frida Pinto are afterthoughts and their characters could have been played by anybody. John Lithgow is mildly funny but isn't given much to work with.The contagion plot line is uninteresting. The director has fine dramatic timing (the scene where Caesar first speaks is as wonderfully played as Heston's original "dirty apes!" scene) but he doesn't bring many visual ideas to the action sequences. The movie never really works independent of Andy Serkis, the true auteur behind "Rise", and he carries it extremely well, largely without saying a word.