You'd be a silly monkey to miss this film ...

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2011)

The new movie RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES by Director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) is effectively a prequel to the "Planet of the Apes" and tells the story of a lab that performs genetic engineering on animals to try to get a cure for Alzheimer's – and of the consequences that occur when things go dramatically wrong
A dedicated scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) is trying to discover a cure for Alzheimer's Disease by performing tests on apes.
One of these chimpanzees "Bright Eyes" soon becomes the "star of the show" of the medical trials and exceeds all expectations for the new drug ALZ-112 – which has been developed to try and slow down / prevent Alzheimer's and shows highly advanced intelligence  until a problem happens in the lab and she goes on a rampage and is killed. Unknown to the lab owners – Bright Eyes had just given birth to a baby "Caesar" – who like his mother has also inherited all the good things about the new drug – only this time without the bad side-effects. Caesar is smuggled out of the lab to protect him when all the other chimps have been ordered to be destroyed.
Meanwhile in the lab, ALZ-113 soon supersedes the original drug – but, it has one very unknown, dangerous side-effect in that it is airborne, incredibly contagious and highly toxic to humans.
As he grows, Caesar displays extra-ordinary intelligence – far exceeding even the intelligence of his mother and of humans of a similar age. Will decides that the results on Caesar are so conclusive that he will treat his father (John Lithgow), who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's with the same drug  which initially not only stops the disease – but starts to actually reverse the symptoms – until side-effects start appearing  Meanwhile, Ape sanctuary owner John Landon (Brian Cox) – is compelled to take in Caesar after he attacks a next door neighbour that has been abusing Will's father.
Caesar ultimately discovers where he came from and now knows why he has become so intelligent – and devises a plan to get more of the ALZ-112 drug to give to his fellow apes. Caesar soon takes control of an ape army. Soon Caesar uses his superior intelligence and skills to overthrow the brutal zoo keepers and arranges a mass break-out from the Ape Sanctuary and make their bid for freedom
John Lithgow (Cliffhanger, Shrek series, 3rd rock from the Sun) and Brian Cox (Manhunter, Troy) are giants of the acting world – but even these heavyweights were completely overshadowed by the performance of ANDY SERKIS (Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Sex and Drugs and Rock n' Roll, King Kong, The Hobbit) as Caesar – who totally stole every scene he appeared in
James Franco (127 Hours, Eat Pray Love) as Will, and Freida Pinto – (Slumdog Millionaire) as the love interest Caroline give good sound performances along with Tom Felton as Dodge – the brutal zoo keeper
The use of CGI created monkeys is very good and convincing especially for the close up shots and the battle scenes). The facial expressions and mannerisms of the actors far exceed anything that has been seen before – they are really believable.
Though most of these events – especially the portrayal of the monkeys by Andy Serkis and Co. is so convincing that you feel compelled to be on the monkeys side!
I feel that RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES could easily kick-start the flagging Planet of the Apes franchise – hopefully, they would all be films of the high quality and caliber of this film.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is 105mins long, is a PG-12A certificate and will be on general release from Thurs 11th August, 2011