"He's a cute little guy, isn't he?"

Rating: 7/10 (26 February 2012)

Over the years I've become an aficionado of gorilla and great ape movies, and have even dedicated one of my IMDb movie lists to the subject. I was a little taken aback at the rating for this film because it looked like it could possibly challenge the original "King Kong" for the top spot among the dozen and a half monkey movies I've reviewed over the years. Fortunately, 'Kong' and 1968's "Planet of the Apes" still rank numbers one and two on my list, but this one comes in right behind, actually ahead of the King Kong remake of 2005. Does that mean Andy Serkis is getting better as an actor? I won't try to read any more into that whole business, you'll have to decide for yourself.
What I get a kick out of is the kind of pseudo-scientific jargon that goes into setting up the premise for films like this. Back in the Forties, you had stuff like "The Ape Man" with Bela Lugosi and "The Ape" with Boris Karloff. Both stories relied on mad scientists extracting human spinal fluid in their experiments to achieve the cures they were hoping to advance. In the film under discussion, the topic acquires current social relevance in attempting to find a cure for Alzheiner's disease, a noble goal in which science is making significant strides. Putting a face on the problem with John Lithgow's character was actually pretty well done, even if the idea of his son Will (James Franco) conducting an out of bounds experiment on him could be even remotely possible.
On thoughtful analysis, the movie offers up some glaring plot problems. You'll recall that the race to find a breakthrough drug for treatment of Alzheimer's or any other significant brain disorder had the highest priority for the Gen-Sys team. Yet the film meanders over a TEN YEAR period stuck in virtually the same place in regards to making any kind of progress. Not only that, but the characters don't appear to have aged a single day! So right there, I submit that they should have been looking for a fountain of youth drug, which would have killed two birds with one stone - perpetual youth AND a cure for age related disease.
But let's not go ape. All of that sensible stuff is not what movie goers look for when shopping around for blockbuster entertainment. This actually IS entertaining in parts, and what I probably enjoyed most was the CGI component involved in having Caesar swing about his playroom at home and the neighborhood, and later on those orangs taking it to the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't pretend to know how the animators do any of that, but the result is pretty amazing. There's also the humanity expressed by Caesar's facial expressions, as well as all the other chimps that take on significant roles.
No doubt, the picture sets us up for a sequel as the possibilities are practically endless. For old timers like myself, the original "Planet of the Apes" is the one to measure all the rest by, so in that regard it's going to be tough to hit that bar. But who knows, in a world of sequels and remakes, there's always going to be a product out there that will try to monkey around for a winning formula.