So much ape there's no room for human.

Rating: 2/10 (7 November 2011)

I'll admit that when I first heard this was being made (and first saw the trailer) I thought it was a hilariously awful idea and the movie wouldn't be worth anything. The surprisingly positive reviews got me kind of excited for it, but now that I've seen it I feel I should have stuck to my original guns and just passed on it. With a real pro like Andy Serkis taking on the role of Caesar, the film is able to elicit quite a bit of emotional strength out of it's revolutionary ape. I found myself caring for him a lot, although this concern dwindled as the film progressed towards it's alarmingly anti-climatic conclusion.
The main problem though is that they spent so much time developing Caesar that they forgot to do anything with the humans. Every single human is a dull one-dimensional set piece just designed to further the plot for Caesar, none of them being interesting in the least bit. It sure doesn't help that the actors are unanimously drab, from the sleep-walking James Franco down to the laughable Tom Felton. The action sequences in the final act were well done but they ended far too quickly and couldn't make up for the very dry experience that came for the hour and a half before it.