Spectacular origin story

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2011)

The new Planet of the Apes movie is a creation all on its own unencumbered by the original Planet of the Apes from the '60s. In this movie, the intelligent apes are not product of natural evolution, but accidental creation of science. Although it's unlikely that few hundred organized apes can successfully launch a revolution, this movie was intended to be the first of series of movies to come. The story is extraordinarily violent, and that aspect turns me off, but as a story it's done in the most believable format as possible for the origin of the Planet of the Apes.
Asides from those two points, the movie is above average science fiction movie. Still it's hard to think that the whole movie cost nearly 100 million dollars. The cost of movie making seems to be going up these days.
It's hard to rate this movie because the star is a CGI ape Caesar. The character has believability, but CGI is CGI, and I couldn't get emotionally involved with its personality. The other casts were so so, and had to take second fiddle to the ape.
The movie is no masterpiece, but neither was the 1968 classic. But one thing it did succeed and that is it recaptured the sensation of the original Planet of the Apes when it first came out.