Enough 'Apes' movies already; stop the madness!

Rating: 2/10 (18 December 2011)

Of a total now of seven the 'Apes' movie franchise spawned but two truly enjoyable entries; the iconic 1968 original and its first sequel 'Beneath' (1970), which was basically a hot-rod rerun with added radioactive mutants. After that the budgets were cut and quality dwindled. 'Escape' (1971) was essentially a modern-day thriller about fugitives who happened to be apes from the future, and only nominally science fiction. 'Conquest' (1972) was similarly a rather conventional 'revolution' movie with apes in the role of the oppressed. The cheap, cheesy and simple-minded 'Battle' (1973) brought the run of 'Apes' movies to a rather tatty and careworn end, but there was the ignominy of a conspicuously low-rent 1974 TV series to follow. Tim Burton's bizarre and confusing 2001 remake of the original 1968 movie succeeded only in debasing the series further, and now we have 'Rise'. Sadly, 'Rise' is an over-filled compendium of timeworn clichés about the slave who frees his people and successfully leads his people to freedom (head ape Caesar does rather overdo the grim, determined 'rebel hero looking defiant' poses). Or at least that was where the slightly puzzling ending seemed to be going. Plot holes are a persistent hazard, and there is one particularly galling example when the research center apes, having been exposed to the brain-enhancing virus and rather unfeasibly mutating into brainy apes literally overnight, storm a city zoo and liberate the apes there, who immediately join the Cause. Never mind that the zoo apes haven't yet been exposed to the embraining virus. 'Rise' has a banal script and a narrative which actually seems blissfully ignorant about its hack writing (all characters are uniformly thinly-sketched 'goodies' or 'baddies') and glaring lack of originality, but the unconvincing CGI special effects were also a problem. It is 2011 and we surely should not be put in mind of those weird-looking things which were supposed to be taken as chimpanzees in 'Jumanji' (1995). In closing, I rented this movie with a promotional 'free hire' voucher, and it still felt like I was sold a bag of bad oysters. No more 'Apes' movies, please. Let this dull, clichéd and dumbed-down effort be the last of its kind and let that be an end to it.