A snore of a beginning leads to a banger of an ending!

Rating: Null/10 (8 April 2014)

It is sort of difficult to walk into a movie like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and not feel just the slightest tug of cynicism. The idea of a prequel to Planet of the Apes seems like one of those weary concepts born out of profits, not art. Knowing that, I sat restless for about the first hour or so, admittedly bored stiff. Then something extraordinary happened at about the midway point: The movie actually got better. This almost never happens, most movies start well and peter out at the end, but here's a movie that starts as a dullard but ends well even though we know what is going to happen.
My initial cynicism may come from the fact that Rise of the Planet of the Apes arrives in the shadow of an extraordinary documentary from earlier this year called Project Nim, the true story of a now-legendary 1973 experiment in which an infant Chimpanzee was raised in a normal human household and taught to communicate, but was ultimately abandoned when the experiment ended. The focal point was that human beings, in their quick pace to understand these creatures, tend to overlook the fact that apes are violent and uncontrollable. Rise of the Planet of the Apes arrives now as the lead-in to The Planet of the Apes, about how the apes evolved to the point where they took over the planet, learn to talk and decided that the best place for Charlton Heston was in a cage. It would be interesting to watch all three films in one night and discuss what message seems to emerge.
The basic story of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a labored science fiction plot about an experiment gone wrong. A good-hearted genetic scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) has just developed something called ALZ 112, which has been proved to be a cure for Alzheimer's disease. He has a personal stake in this drug because his own father (John Lithgow) is showing early signs of the disease. In the lab, the drug has been tested on an adult chimp named Caesar (Andy Serkis) who begins showing signs of human intelligence. Never-the-less Caeser is pushed and poked and prodded and bullied, and as he gains intelligence through the drug, begins to understand things that wouldn't exactly make his caretakers very happy – like the combination to the lock on his cage, or his uncomfortable ability to organize a militia. What could be worse than a super-intelligent ape with managerial skills? Meanwhile, among the humans, there's some standard nonsense about shutting down the experiments, Will abandoning the project on moral grounds, and the presence of a one-dimensional bully (Tom Felton) who pushes Caesar too far. The human element in the film is a letdown. All of the human roles are all underwritten, speaking only in dialogue that is established to further the plot. James Franco, an actor that I admire, isn't given much to do here. Neither is the beautiful Frieda Pinto, as his research assistant whose role here does little more than take up space. Same goes for Tom Felton, formerly Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter films, whose performance here just transplants that performance here. Even the wonderful John Lithgow has only to do what the plot requires.
The scenes that do work take place inside the cages of the research lab. The apes don't speak to one another except for a few exchanges through sign language. Caesar begins to communicate with an orangutan, and they begin to make plans. That's when the movie begins to improve. The moment that Caeser begins to organize the other apes and orangutans in the lab, the plot gets really interesting. The uprising of the apes doesn't lead to a takeover of the world, but merely to a takeover of San Francisco. Escaping from the research facility, they make it about as far as The Golden Gate Bridge and then The Redwood Forest. So, ultimately this isn't exactly planet of the apes, but you've gotta start somewhere. The film's third act is exhilarating as the apes take to the streets and Caesar exits the film on a note (or rather an evolution) that takes us completely by surprise. So does a development over the closing credits that I won't spoil with one single word.
The apes are brought to life through some astonishingly good special effects – which earned an Oscar nomination at this year's academy awards. They turn the apes into expressive beings, not just herky-jerky effects pasted on the screen. Caesar himself is the real achievement, as played by Andy Serkis much in the same way he played King Kong and Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. He expresses a wordless fury that we can feel building inside him.
The scenes among the apes take on an ominous quality. Caesar and his simian cohorts are so interesting that it comes as a disappointment that it stops short of how they establish themselves and how they learn to talk. Maybe that's being held over for a sequel. We are left wishing that the film would have given us less human interaction and focused more on the apes. Make the film longer – an epic – so that we really get a feel for how and why the planet got taken over. Maybe next time it could be revealed that their anger was fueled by the ignorance and cruelty depicted in Project Nim. Maybe that could be their recruitment film.