Apes rise honorably in a reboot

Rating: Null/10 (17 August 2011)

I did not watch the original Apes-series of movies from the old times. This is my first Ape contact since the Tim Burton big-budget flick a few years ago. So I was totally not prepared for the tour-de-force it provided. I slept thru the recent superhero/big-budget movies ie green lantern, xmen first class, pirates4, capt American, etc, because those movies lacked something crucial to a movie, which is plot development. Rise-Apes went the opposite direction: it did not totally have a dead villain ending; it is all about development; the CGI was spot-on and not massively done. It feels more like an art house than a commercial movie with emotions filling admirably for explosions--yes the emotional explosions in this movie are as often as bombings in a Michael Bay film. The flaw is that at times it feels like an extended intro into a possible new series of Apes franchise, which smelled cheesy. And the lead baddie does not feel like a baddie given current global economy. There is absolutely zero spark on the romance between the lead guy and his Indian girlfriend--I could not notice a kiss (if you think you saw one, keep it, it's a collectable item). Overall this is a great movie and so far the best from those action flicks above. We are so going to see sequels after this film. EZ