Excellent prequel to a long-running franchise

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2011)

It seems that you can't keep a good ape story in its cage. In the beginning, there was the French-language novel by Pierre Boulle (1963); then followed the original film in 1968 and between 1970 and 1973 no less than four sequels; there were two television series in 1974 and 1975 and various comics; a reboot of the original film cam along in 2001; and now ten years later we have a prequel. There are three allusions in the 2011 work to the 1968 original - see if you can spot them.
What makes the latest movie special is that it tells a different story, how a scientific experiment with a mixture of caring and mercenary motives goes disastrously wrong, and it uses much more advanced digital effects which impressively render simians both expressing character and wreaking mayhem. San Francisco - the backdrop to so many films - is a great location here with the Golden Gate Bridge providing a splendid setting for the first mass conflict between apes and humans. Of course, it won't be the last because the commercial success of the movie, plus the nature of the conclusion and a brief clip early on in the credits, all set us up nicely for a sequel.
Meanwhile well done to British Rupert Wyatt on creating a well-paced and gripping adventure and congratulations to the special effects guys for creating such a believable universe and to Andy Serkis for his achievement as lead ape Caesar (following similar creature performances in "The Lord Of The Rings" and "King Kong"). James Franco, John Lithgow and Brian Cox as always are in fine form, but sadly the one female role - filled by the beautiful Freida Pinto ("Slumdog Millionaire") - is seriously underwritten.