Quite a good reboot

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2012)

After the disastrous Tim Burton remake of Planet of the Apes, a reboot seemed a little unnecessary, but after watching it, I realized that it actually seemed to be not just a good idea to continue this ever popular franchise that I feared was going to be in the dark forever, but it was smart filmmaking. James Franco stars as a scientist who's father, Jon Lithgow, suffers from Alzheimer's, and he rapidly tries to create a cure, but after testing it and it supposedly works on a chimpanzee, the mother goes crazy before the cure can be patented and financially supported and the offspring, who has the benefits of this drug as well, becomes Caesar, who in the fourth film in the original series, led the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. The film's special effects, while they sometimes look cheap, do the trick, aided by a tremendous performance by Andy Serkis doing motion capture as Caesar, and a thrilling ride once the apes get loose and rise.