Not impressed, sorry!

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2011)

I was disappointed with this movie. I had expected world-class CGI, and got it, but nothing else worked for me. The plot was extremely thin and the characterisation - at least of the humans - was virtually non- existent. The human characters were shallow in the extreme, appearing unable even to demonstrate the five facial expressions they learnt at the performing arts school.
James Franco was horribly miscast as a prize-winning researcher who self-evidently should never have been allowed to proceed beyond the high school chemistry lab. Freida Pinto was so vacuous that her part could have been played better by a photograph fixed to the wall. John Lithgow and David Oyelowo appeared to have left their acting skills at home as did Tyler Labine. The usually excellent (though one-dimensional) David Hewlett appeared bored out of his mind. All would have been booed off the stage at any self-respecting amateur dramatics society.
Of the humans, only Brian Cox and Tom Felton were credible, with Felton's overt cruelty offering the only real tension in the movie before the apes inevitably stole the show.
And of course the apes did steal the show. Unlike the humans, they had a good range of facial expressions to choose from and Caesar in particular used them to the full. The CGI was outstanding and the scenes on the Golden Gate Bridge contained more drama than the rest of the movie put together.
The ending was pathetically trite, made with an obvious view to preparing the ground for a sequel rather than bringing the story to any recognisable or satisfactory conclusion.
The sequel will need to be a lot better in order to encourage me to pay to see it. I hope that the current human cast is not considered for any sequel with the possible exception of Brian Cox and Tom Felton. Of course Andy Serkis must star again as Caesar, together with the same CGI team. They were the real stars of the show.