Rise and Repeat

Rating: 6/10 (6 August 2011)

Granted, my only exposure to The Planet of the Apes mythology was the 2001 remake, Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, though I might have seen the original only, but I don't remember. That said, I already had the story down, the "secret" the 1968 origin held in the final seconds and the characters.
So, what does Rise of the Planet of the Apes (RPA) bring to light? Oh, the how and why. The similarly titled, 2007's Hannibal Rising, also answered some predated Lecter questions. Come to think of it, there's also The Dark Knight Rises coming soon, but that's neither here nor there nor a prequel.
I digress, RPA was oodles better than the Hannibal Jr. show and quite entertaining on its own, even if you've never seen the originals. They did a fantastic job of making a prequel its own. Sure, there were the inevitable homage to the Charlton Heston "classic" – one that made me smile (LOOK UP) – but RPA definitely stood on its own. So much so, if they continue this "new" series, it would surely welcomed by me.
RPA tells the classic tale of Apes vs. Alzheimer's, whereas apes are being experimented on to cure the disease. James Franco's Will is the idea man and one of the movie's major flaws is the obvious reason why he wants to cure the incurable old-age ailment.
Get past that! (Yeah, including myself, Mr. Criticpants) RPA is the main definition of popcorn-fare. The movie's A-B-C with evident conclusions. Granted, it's better than most popcorn movies, such as ANY Transformers disaster, but it's still not to be taken too seriously.
At any rate, the target chimp of this movie is Caesar who begins his "learning" on day two and only gets smarter from there on. The movie jumps years like they were Tom Hanks' time spend on the Wilson Island and when Caesar's grown, he's imprisoned when he defends his "grandfather" Charles (John Lithgow) and guess how happy half-human Caesar is about that.
Enough examples are shown on why Apes are more human than, well, humans and we get to the foreseen finale.
I'm not dogging the movie – on the contrary, again, it was entertaining even when it slowed to a halt in the mid-section or when it was predictable. It has incredible special effects – tell me once when the Apes looked, acted or blended (with live action) unconvincingly and I will defend the movie.
It's worth a shot. Heck, they didn't jump on the 3-D bandwagon – KUDOS to the movie for that bold move. SEE IT.
Side Note: I will need to see it again soon. Laughably and sadly, we had this imbecile sitting to my left that snorted, laughed at the wrong times, talked and read out every word on the screen. EVEN when it was just a police car driving by on the screen "HEH! Police. Hee hee." Sure, I made fun of him; I turned to him and said "First movie?" and later, I laughed myself, saying: "I can't decide who's the bigger primate: the one on the screen or to my left." Alas, it didn't shut up the ass. Eh, similar to the movie's "motto," some people have to believe in evolution. Here was proof.