A movies that explores the back story to the original Planet of the Apes

Rating: 8/10 (6 August 2011)

This film is sort of a remake of the prequels to the original Planet of the Apes. Some have suggested that it was based on Tim Burton's film, but after watching his version of the film and now having seen this version, it has become quite clear to me that it has respectfully ignored not only Tim Burton's films, but also the sequels to Planet of the Apes where the apes come back in time, give birth to an intelligent Ape, and then start off a war between the humans and the intelligent apes.
This film is quite different and begins in a research lab where a scientist is attempting to develop a drug to cure alzheimers. It because clear that this is no attempt to save the world, but rather it is because his father has alzheimers and he wants to find a cure for it. Anyway, one of the apes goes wild, breaks out, and tears up the board room where the investors are meeting to discuss the proposal, and after this exhibition, they decide to can the program and kill all the apes.
However, they find a baby ape, who had been born after one of the apes had been given the medicine, and it becomes quickly obvious that this ape, who is given the name Ceaser, is much smarter than the average chimp. However, problems happen and Ceaser is locked up in a primate holding facility, where he uses his intelligence to become the big kid on the block.
Ceaser is the main character in the film, and it is obvious that he is the first of these new breeds of apes. He is incredibly intelligent, and is able to get himself out of his cage, but he doesn't escape, but rather uses his freedom to free the rest of the apes. He does this first by stealing the medicine and releases it in the compound, and then, once the other apes have developed an intelligence, escapes the compound, and flees the city to hide out in a nearby forest. Thus, while the film is not about an Ape revolution, it is about the beginnings on of, and the apes succeed in that they are able to escape the city and flee into the wild. Once they are free, there will be no stopping them.
The apes aren't the only concern that humanity has to face. The medicine has a very nasty side effect, and that it is deadly to humans, and it is also contagious. On an outward appearance it seems as if it is a bad case of tuberculosis, however, by the time that the scientist is discovered who initially contracted the disease, he is dead, and it has already spread.
The film hearkens back to the original film a number of times. The opening scene, where the apes are running through the jungle being chased by humans, is reminiscent of a similar scene in Planet of the Apes. The line 'get your hands off me you damned dirty ape' is quoted a couple of times, and a newspaper article about a rocket carrying the first manned mission to Mars disappears. All of this points to the original movie.
Finally, I should say that this film is a tragedy, and the tragic character is our scientist. He is so obsessed with curing his father than he inevitably changes the world in a way that he did not intend to happen. He has caused the apes to evolve, and in turn, has damned the human race to destruction. Anyway, we do empathise with the apes because the prison, and the guards in the prison, do not make life easy for them, and we are already empathising with Ceaser as we know that he is special. However the film makers do not turn him into a bad guy because he always intervenes when an ape attempts to kill a human. He only wants to be free, and he wants his cousins to be free as well. He does not want to kill humans nor does he want to be a killer. One thus wonders, in the end where he lets the corporate executive fall to his death, whether he has change, but one must remember that it is not that he kills him, but rather turns his back and does not save him.