A Great Way to Start a Set of Prequels

Rating: 9/10 (9 May 2015)

This was the last feature film I watched in my Special Effects class this semester, and I am so impressed by the digital effects utilized in this film. We have gone beyond motion capture into performance capture - a method of digital filmmaking which actually incorporates the actor's facial expressions and finger movements into what it captures before digitizing the look of the character over the actor's face. This trend started around the time of Avatar, but the performance is more central to this story than it was to Avatar, a film which was so obsessed in digital filmmaking that the focus was more on the overwhelmingly beautiful world than the characters.
What I dislike is that people had a hard time accepting these portrayals of apes as performances, which they definitely are. Andy Serkis really deserves a nomination or at least an honorary Oscar for how he has changed the game with his incredible immersion into the roles of Gollum and now Caesar.
This film provides a good story in which the James Franco character struggles to take responsibility at first, but then grows into a great caretaker as Caesar adapts to living with his own species. We start with Franco's father, played by John Lithgow, having to live with his son, but through the help of a nurse or helper. As Franco's character reluctantly takes Caesar home to prevent his death, he becomes a more loving individual, stealing from his company in order to help his father regain his memory and even his intelligence. Towards the end of the film though his story becomes sadder; he admits to his wife he "can't lose them both," referring to his father and Caesar, and it is more Caesar's story which gets resolved at the conclusion while Franco has to let him go.
This is a really good action film which might have benefited from a little more humor, but I guess this film wasn't trying to be the typical blockbuster. It is highly entertaining to watch, and gives us great insight to the circumstances leading to the original film "Planet of the Apes." It may be nowhere near to how meaningful the original film is, but keep these apes coming, I'm not complaining.