Dale Lawson's Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2011)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011) had a lot to live up to after the success of the original saga in the 70s. In my opinion it lived up to the reputation of its predecessor; unlike Tim Burton's adaptation as many people believe. Rise of the Planet of the Apes follows the character of Will Rodman (James Franco) as he attempts to create a drug that has the ability to cure Alzheimer's. By testing this drug on apes it improves their intelligence and Will is forced to take a baby monkey, Caesar (Andy Serkis), home after an unfortunate accident at the lab. The film then continues to follow Will and Caesar's relationship until the inevitable rise of the apes.
Many of the actors' performances in this film are unbelievable. Andy Serkis, king of monkey motion capture stars as Caesar, the eventual leader of the ape rebellion. He has outdone himself once again as he behaves, through facial expressions and body movements, just like a chimpanzee. Without letting Serkis take all the glory, the other motion capture actors provided thoroughly life-like apes for the film. Through their believable performances we are lead to believe from the start of the film that they are in-fact real apes acting alongside James Franco. Franco's acting is as respectable as always, even more so in this film as he faced the difficulty of acting alongside Serkis, and many others, in a motion capture suits. The one actor that deserves recognition is John Lithgow, who gave an emotional and worryingly realistic portrayal of a father with Alzheimer's disease. Finally Tom Felton, who we all know as Draco Malfoy, featured in his first film since the end of the Harry Potter franchise. Throughout the movie he delivers lines that had been said by Charlton Heston in the original Ape films, and although not doing these quotes justice he still presents the audience with a dislikeable antagonist.
This movie's plot is a massive talking point for Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffer, 1968) fans as this is the first Ape film to alter the plots created by the originals. Instead of apes travelling from the future back to the past and giving birth to Caesar, he is created through scientific accidents and experiments. This take on the story, although controversial, makes sense in this modern age; as we are no longer scared of space travel; the main fear held by humanity is that of disease.
One of the things that stood out in this exciting movie was the epic soundtrack written by Patrick Doyle, who composed Thor's (Kenneth Branagh, 2011) soundtrack. This soundtrack is one of the best, if not the best I've heard this year and finished the film on a fantastic, adrenaline fuelled high.
Finally, I'll briefly mention the graphics and special effects used. Obviously, being a summer blockbuster it was going to have to have motion captured apes, rather than the other two options, of real chimpanzees or men dressed as monkeys, like the originals used. However they went one step further with this film, using the same motion capturing experts that did Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) and King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005) to help create life-like, well textured and expressive apes.
In summary, I really enjoyed Rise of the Planet of the Apes as it took a fresh twist on the Planet of the Apes story. Was this remake needed though? Probably not. But the fact still stands that I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen. The acting skills of Andy Serkis and John Lithgow were phenomenal, Patrick Doyle's soundtrack outstanding and the motion captured apes story for freedom unpredictably entertaining.
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