Monkey See Monkey Do

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2012)

This prequel to the 1968 cult classic about apes and the humans who don't love them takes forever to get going, but once it does, it proves to be a pretty entertaining action film.
James Franco is the scientist whose tinkering with genetics and all that jazz is responsible for creating a race of super-intelligent apes and a virus that at the same time begins to kill off the human race. Some not very impressive special effects early in the film give way to some quite impressive ones later, as the apes ban together and declare war on San Francisco, leading a no-holds-barred charge across the Golden Gate Bridge for the sanctuary of Muir Woods. In between, John Lithgow is given the thankless task of portraying an Alzheimer's patient and Frieda Pinto (of "Slumdog Millionaire") shows up to prove that she has absolutely no chemistry with James Franco. The villain of the piece is, typically, corporate greed, as personified in this film as the head of Franco's lab and who manages to work in a reference to money into nearly every line of dialogue he's given.
People who are expecting camp on par with the 1968 film, or any lines to equal some of the doozies delivered by Charlton Heston in that film, will be disappointed, as this film approaches its material with utmost (and misguided) seriousness.
Grade: B