Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

***SPOILERS***

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a prequel to the original 1960s film “Planet of the Apes”. It stars James Franco who plays “Will Roodman” a scientist who experiments on chimps, with a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. When one of those chimps goes into violent rage, the company boss orders all the chimps to terminated. Will discovers that chimp was protecting another chimp she just gave birth to. He decides the baby chimp take it home, where he also lives with his father, who also has Alzheimer. Then he discovers that chimp has inherited his human intelligence of his mother.

After 5 years, Will gets married to a female veterinarian. While Caesar grows into big chimp and has a loving relationship with Will and his father. Which leads to a scene, that shows Caesar attacking a neighbor, during an argument with Will’s father. Caesar is sent to by court order to an animal shelter that houses apes. Then he sees the poor treatment of the apes, by the caretakers and brings them together. Finally Caesar leads an breakout out the shelter and a revolt down the streets of San Francisco.

The CGI is great in this film. The apes look very real and threatening. And human-like motion is done very well. Especially with Caesar, who played by Andy Serkis, who also did Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" . Caesar’s human-like emotions in this film were captured very well..

John Lighgow, does an excellent portrayal of man suffering with Alzheimers. The scenes with his son in the movie, are very moving.

The most unlikeable character in this film. Tom Felton’s character, who played an abusive caretaker, in the animal shelter. My problem with his character seemed a bit cliche as some one who’s mean to all the animals.

The Apes vs Humans battle scene, that we see in the trailer, comes near the end of the movie. But that is because so much time is spent on story and character development beforehand. That’s good thing, because it helped me care a lot more about who wins that battle later the film. Personally, I felt so much for the Apes that I wanted them to win. But the same time, I didn’t want them to kill innocent humans.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, is not perfect film. It lacks some originality. But. I was surprised how good this film was. The trailers make it seem mediocre, because they don’t capture the emotional impact this film has.

By Miguel Pierre