Andy Serkis steals this movie as Caesar. Brilliant Film.

Rating: 10/10 (7 July 2017)

With the upcoming release of 'War For The Planet Of The Apes', I thought I would write my reviews of the two previous films, 'Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' and 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes'. Firstly 'Rise Of..' Released in cinemas in 2011, 'Rise Of' stars James Franco, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Tom Felton and Andy Serkis, but this is not a film about the human characters. They are incidental. This is the story of one ape in particular, and the way a series of decisions by human beings lead to an uprising and a shift in the balance of power on the planet James Franco is Dr Will Rodman, a scientist who is the head of a team working on a drug to cure Alzheimer's disease and testing it on chimpanzees. During one of the tests, a female ape who has developed heightened intelligence due to the drug, goes on a mad rampage and is killed. Discovering the reason for the rampage was the fact that she was trying to protect her baby, Will decides to take the infant chimp home and raise it away from the facility. Will names him Caesar and learns that the chimp has inherited his mother's intelligence. Over the years they develop a very strong relationship and bond, Caesar learns sign language and all seems to be going fine until an altercation with a neighbour forces authorities to take Caesar to a primate shelter. At first this proves difficult, but in time he decides to break out and take the other captive apes with him. You're probably familiar with the original Charlton Heston 'Planet Of The Apes' movie in which the apes have already taken over, this film shows how that all started. If you read my review of 'Alien: Covenant' you'll know that I am not really a fan of origin stories or prequels, that being said, this is a terrific movie. It's hard to talk about this film without first mentioning Andy Serkis. He is a superb actor. From Gollum, King Kong and now these films, he is arguably the king of motion capture acting. He can portray every emotion with just his expressions and through his eyes and is so convincing in every role. Andy Serkis owns this movie. James Franco is very good, his performance and role are very believable. Freida Pinto is also very good and John Lithgow is terrific. The special effects in this film are outstanding. The apes look so realistic, there were even times where I was thinking "that has to be a real ape surely?". Once the action starts it is really exciting and the whole film is brilliantly directed. If I have any negatives about this film, I thought it was a little bit slow to start, but once it got to know Caesar as a character it really picked up. Also, I knew this film was intended to be a rebooted prequel to the original and therefore I expected references in there, but I was hoping they wouldn't be so 'nudge-nudge, wink wink'. The ridiculous use of the 'get your paws of me you damn dirty ape' line was unnecessary. There is a sequence during the end credits which follows an earlier plot line and really explains how the apes are destined to take over and gets us ready for the following release, 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes'. I think that 'Rise Of.' has done what it set out to do, and more. It wanted to reboot the franchise and hopefully make you forget the abysmal Tim Burton attempt, and rather than just do a 'retelling of the original', it wanted to start again and breathe new life into the story.