CGI Aping Rises Above Live-Action Acting

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2020)

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is a standard franchise reboot, mildly entertaining if predictable. The motion capture for Andy Serkis's performance as the chimpanzee Caesar is more impressive than the rest of the CGI, which tends to vary in realistic motion and weight with the real environment. Moreover, Serkis and his ape army are more compelling than the society of naked apes here, as led by a bland James Franco as a scientist. His relationship with his Alzheimer's-afflicted father is more formulaic than interesting, as if he needs this personal connection to be working on a cure for the disease. His girlfriend is an even more pointless character. By comparison, at least the humans who are cruel to the caged apes incite an emotional response, as we root against them in favor of Caesar and his followers. There might have been an opportunity here for a metaphor on what it means to be human, between the various primates and between live-action actors and the motion-capture ones, but the Homo-sapien characters here are too boring to make for effective contrast.
Largely, this comes across as an exercise in setting up subsequent movies at the sake of an interesting, self-contained picture. Viewers familiar with the prior Planet of the Apes series, or other media, will recognize the point of the spaceship launch, the virus spread and such in that vein, and the "bright eyes" and "dirty ape" references. It's a blockbuster that meets limited expectations, so it's not surprising that it was successful at the box office.