Better Than I Would've Originally Believed

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2012)

If someone had asked me in early 2011 what big summer movie I was least anticipated, it would've been RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. For a bunch of reasons, the biggest being that I've never been a fan of the originals. Sorry, fans, but it was just a series I never gravitated towards. I've seen bits and pieces of the original and next to nothing of the sequels. If it weren't for parodies (e.g. the episode of "The Simpsons" featuring the musical), I probably wouldn't even be aware of the big reveal at the end. I just didn't care. Combine that with my growing agitation with the sequel/prequel/remake/reboot craze and a title at least three words too long, and it all adds up to a movie that I had no intention of seeing. The trailers were intriguing, no doubt, but it wasn't until the reviews began floating in with praise for the movie and Andy Serkis' motion capture awesomeness. So I gave it a chance and admit that I was wrong. Establishing the events that led to the ape domination, the movie is set in modern times where Dr. Will Rodman is using chimpanzees in his tests to cure Alzheimer's. When a lab incident leads to the eradication of his ape subjects, Will smuggles an infant to the safety of his home until he can find an alternative. The chimp, named Caesar, becomes a part of the family with Will and his Alzheimer's-afflicted father. As Caesar grows, so does his intelligence. When an altercation with a neighbor leads to Caesar's imprisonment in an ape preserve at the hands of cruel men, Caesar grows to detest his place in the world as an "animal" and leads a revolt with his fellow apes.
I suppose it's a good thing that the apes in this movie are infinitely more relatable than any of the humans. Andy Serkis is the king of motion capture characters and Caesar is the best he's done. It really says a lot for the man's talent that he can create such a vivid character utilizing body language and facial expressions. Caesar isn't a sentient creature of another world like Gollum or an instinct-driven beast like Kong; he's thinking, feeling creature and Serkis brings real life to his performance that (with some fantastic CG from Weta) feels real. Honestly, the entire motion capture crew deserve some credit for their work bringing these animals to life. I wish the same could be said for the human cast. James Franco is pretty flat here. I'll chalk it up to the possibility that he just wasn't used to playing against a CG character. Freida Pinto is Will's love interest, a vet tech named Caroline. Her only real purpose is to provide the voice of reason against Will's mad scientist ways. John Lithgow stands out as Will's ill father and David Oyelowo makes for a pretty good villain (if business-centric = villain, here). The film also features the awesome Brian Cox as the owner of the problematic ape sanctuary, but it's former evil wizard-in-training Tom Felton who acts as real source of evil and gets away with a few franchise-favorite quotes (even if he came off as a cartoon character).
The movie has sort of a slow build-up to the eventual ape uprising but, when it hits, it's pretty wicked. A massive final battle on the Golden Gate Bridge is the highlight of the movie, but everything leading into it is very deliberately paced. I guess I was kind of expecting more bang in the finale but the filmmakers must be saving the rest of the ape's rise to power for future installments. This movie was a lot better than I was willing to believe. It may not be the best film in 2011 but I'm sure it'll fall in to my top ten favorites of the year. It was enough to inspire my interest in a franchise I'd long-since written off, and I'm actually interested to see everything come together. The movie was a definite financial success so I'm sure we'll be seeing more and, next time, I probably won't wait for the home video release to check it out. Just think, if the CG apes were the best part of this movie, a movie with even less human involvement could be even better. Maybe and just do the audience a favor and shorten the titles a bit?