The Apes are back for the 7th time on the silver screen !

Rating: Null/10 (7 September 2011)

Rise of the Planet of The Apes Lets begin by saying this is the 7th attempt at making an apes vs Humans film along with the ill fated TV & animated series. We all know the battle between Human kind & a super intelligent simian race has fascinated movie goers ever since 1963 when the French novelist Pierre Boulle wrote the book Monkey Planet. We've had great ups with the franchise and some downs, most of you thinking Tim Burton's 2001 rehash, but I actually liked it, I'm thinking more the 1970 Beneath the Planet of the Apes with the stupid Mutant human storyline ! Anyway Hollywood knows how to make money so one of the major studios backed quite unproven British Director, Rupert Wyatt to reboot the franchise and hopefully kick off its own monkey revolution with spin off sequels and merchandise.
Well I am happy to say he has succeeded. What they've done with the latest ape adventure is bring it back to the 21st century rather then a distant future. It makes it all a bit more believable with a huge pharmaceutical company trying to create a cure to Alzheimer's. With companies money men only interested in the financial rewards, whilst the scientist lead by James Franco concerned more for the humanitarian effect the cure could have. The only problem is to perfect the medicine they need to test it on animals who share the closest DNA to Humans. What are they? YOU GUESSED IT Monkeys, more specifically, Chimpanzees. Over 10 years of research has taken its toll on the chimpanzee population of the research facility and after an earlier setback with most of the primates being put down. The sensitive Will Rodman (Franco) enlists the help of his girlfriend (Freida Pinto) to rescue a baby chimp after his mother is put down. Unwittingly over the years Will discovers that the baby chimp now named Caesar ( a note to the original ape films) has been passed on the gene therapy from his mother and is a super intelligent chimp. Over the rest of the film we see Caser become a intelligent almost human like chimp with a wild animal primal side in trying to protect his "family" namely Will's Alzheimer effected dad (John Lithgow). Caesar ends up in a monkey sanctuary after being quarantined for attacking Will's neighbour. It's through his exposure to wild monkeys from apes to Orangatangs that Caesar realises the human treat him and his kind as animals and its actually his race that should fight the oppression upon them. He unleashes the same chemicals that made him super intelligent on his primate cousins in the sanctuary and all hell breaks loose across San Francisco. In the end this is a great adaptation of the original films and well worth a watch for original ape lovers to people new to the series Enjoy !