A failure in direction and screenplay

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2011)

The new "apes" film begins with a surly James Franco (in his most cardboard performance yet) trying to convince some drug company that his new compound can cure alzheimers. So our ape-like hero's mom dies after the new drug was tested on her. So Franco takes the baby chimp home to John Lithgow (who is not so ironically suffering from alzheimers are well). In a major ethical lapse Franco gives the same untested possibly dangerous compound to his dad. It seems to work. Yay? I could go on but the amount of plot holes that begin to form at this point would make a donuts shop jealous. Plus I'm sure everyone can guess the end.
The problem with this film was the direction. Franco wanders around looking lost and confused the entire time. He doesn't convince me that he is a scientist (why do all movies think scientists use Macs?). His delivery is so understated that I almost forgot he was there. He also had some girlfriend but since there was no back story about her, who the hell cares. There was also an odd appearance of Brian Cox and Tom Felton.
Felton is sadly going to be type-casted as a typical British go-to villain. Unfortunately he doesn't have the talent or charisma to do it particularly well, so we'll see how long he lasts in the shadow of the aging (but great) character actors still out there. That leads me to the next gripe. Why do actors like Cox and Lithgow continue to sign up for these things? The only explanation is money. I doubt they are fulfilled when they get to cut their teeth on lines like, "I'm going home for the day." There isn't much explanation into who Franco's dad is. Nothing about why Franco is so obsessed with curing his alzheimers that he would risk his life. Then we have Cox, who appears for 2 or 3 scenes. He was poorly used and I don't know why he was even in the movie to begin with.
The main problem here is whenever you remake something your inevitably going to compare it to the original. This movie simply doesn't hold a candle to the 1968 "apes." Beneath this new version's glitzy surfaces and state of the art CGI there is nothing there. What is missing is a theme, a moral, anything. At least the Burton movie and the later sequels tried to venture into man's destructive nature and made a raw connection with the audience. Here none of the characters have believable motivations or convictions (including the apes). Yes, they wanted to be free from captivity but why WHY WHY are they "rising up?" In the original it was explained that the apes rose up in the place of man. The movie was low on action and dialog heavy. We still love it because of its mystery and the questions it posed. We follow Heston on his search for answers: what happened to the people? The answers were frightening. It may not have been beautiful to look at by today's standards but the "old apes" really trumps the new one in pretty much every way. If you haven't seen it, watch it. I also recommend "beneath planet of apes."