Rise, but no Shine

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2011)

Imagine if DEEP BLUE SEA were called JAWS 5... Although the basic premise of CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is mirrored here, this has nothing to do with THE PLANET OF THE APES franchise, instead centering on a bunch of abused monkeys who deserve a better place to climb.
Too much attention is focused on the dream drug that, while being used on experimental chimps, might erase the effects of Alzheimer's in humans, and is what Hitchcock called a McGuffin: the device driving the plot that the audience doesn't care about. It's too bad the writers, and characters herein, cared about nothing else.
The eventual breakout of the apelike Alcatraz led by James Franco's research chimp, Caesar, born with the effects of the wonder drug takes way too long to happen. After which the group of angry brutes stomp across a bridge and well let's just say, mankind has nothing to worry about thereafter.
Roddy McDowall's Caesar, after taking over the world in CONQUEST, gives a powerful speech that – if Award shows didn't take themselves so seriously back then – should have warranted a nomination. Here we have a bunch of neat looking computerized simians, but none merit enough humanity for the audience to really care about (anymore than a dog or cat).
So while the original franchise earned an uprising after three previous films, in this big budget computer-driven reboot, right when things pick up... it's all over.
More Reviews: http://cultfilmfreakreviews.blogspot.com