Its strenght are the parallels

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2017)

its strenght lies in the parallels
I've seen Rise several times, and it wasn't until my latest view that I realized its true strenght, which are the parallels it sets with the original '68 film. I always considered, and still consider, Rise the weakest chapter, between this and Dawn. Now, however, I see it as a better film than I did before.
On the surface, Rise can seem a quite average 'origin' movie, but despite its visual style isn't that interesting or distinctive, and the CGI flawed mostly in the first half of the film. What it does right, though, is to connect emotionally the viewer with the main character, Caesar. Andy Serkis demonstrated how well can Mo-Cap be used to portray a CG character while still using an actor. You can see in Caesar often Serkis, and he proves that the talent of an actor can emerge even when he portrays a Computer Generated Character.
As for parallels with the original 1968 movie, there are plenty I noticed. The most evident one is the inversion of quotes between Caesar shouting 'No!' for the first time, and Tom Felton's character, whom quotes Heston's "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" right before. Caesar being imprisoned in a similar facility to that where Charlton Heston's character was in the first one, though inverted in roles, is also a recalling to the first film. When Caesar leads his rise, he imprisons two humans in cages, a foreshadowing of what will happen in the future. During the rampage through San Francisco, the police strongly reminds of the soldier Apes in the first film.
There's a slight animalist facet in this film as well, even though we know that the sequels are not really animalist films but more sort of allegoric in an Orwellian 'Animal Farm' fashion.
Again, I prefer Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to this film. Rise of the Planet of the Apes provides, though, a good enough introduction to the story.