Move over Charlton Heston - James Franco is in town!

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2011)

I saw the Planet of the Apes back in the 70s when I was a child and it was good then and it's great now. Granted this one was more of Cesar's character development. about 80% of the movie was build up and only the past part was the "action". However, that didn't mean it wasn't a good movie. If you are going to this movie expecting to see apes with shotguns and flying airplanes, you will be disappointed. James Franco was excellent as the scientist who developed the stuff that makes apes smart. James's Dad played by the ingenious John Lithgow was good as well as the father with dementia. However, it was Cesar who stole the show. Cesar is played by the Gollum guy from LOTR and he delivered the goods. He started out cute but then became wise yet not evil. For the entire movie, I was on the side of the apes, not the humans. All of the apes seemed really cool actually and none of them were pure evil. It will be interesting to see what happens in the sequel when all of them speak fluent English. I give this movie TWO chimpanzee thumbs up!