A satisfying film despite flat characters

Rating: 7/10 (14 July 2017)

Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the first in a series of prequel films leading into the original 1968 film, Planet of the Apes. its a story about a young chimpanzee named Caesar, who finds himself in the care of a scientist after his mother is killed because of a violent outburst in the lab. The chimp's mother was part of a clinical trial for a potential Alzheimers cure, which ends up granting the simians enhanced intelligence. Caesar played by Andy Serkis, grows up with the scientist, played by James Franco until a violent outburst causes him to be sent to an abusive monkey sanctuary. It is here that Caesar learns to both adapt to primate culture, and to organize the simians into a strong force in order to rise up for their freedom.
The main problem with this movie is that every human character in this film is flat. There is no real character development for anyone. James Franco's performance in this film is likable enough to help us see past a fairly bland performance. The most interesting performance of a human role in this film is the father with Alzheimers, portrayed brilliantly by John Lithgow. Unfortunately, his strong performance really only acts as a plot device to provide a motivation for Franco's character. There is a forced romance subplot between Franco's character and Freida Pinto's veterinarian. It was quite unnecessary to the story. It literally had no impact to the story besides being an attempt to bring a female character into the mix.
Most fortunately for Wyatt's prequel, the film has one major highlight: Andy Serkis' motion- capture performance as Caesar. From a technical standpoint, this film achieved great success with the realism of the lead primate. There are particular moments where we see Caesar slowly take on more human characteristics, especially in his eyes. In those moments, we see why this film was made. Andy Serkis and the effects team responsible for bringing all of the emotion out of Serkis' performance is the reason this film works as well as it does.
Even though the plot of this film can feel a bit disjointed at times, it keeps a steady pace. There is really nothing groundbreaking about the story. It includes some clichéd elements, such as the "business man rushing scientific tests to make a quick buck." The oddly stereotypical high- school-bully character who torments the apes is a bit over the top as well. Again, the grounded realism and emotion of Serkis' Caesar manages to balance out all the empty or clichéd plot elements.
This film is also limited in a way by the fact this it has to do what a prequel has to do.It had to tell an origin story of an established character. The audience knows where the story has to go, and it has to spend time setting up other movies. However, I think Wyatt found a good balance here and made sure we got a fully satisfying film on its own.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, despite its mostly undeveloped human characters and mostly passable plot, still manages to be satisfying. It kept the focus on its strengths and made me care for a computer-generated, human-acted monkey and because of that, I was invested the whole length of the film and am ready to see the sequel. I give it a 7 out of 10.