This review is going to be somewhat shorter than the others because I don’t really have anything bad to say about the film and I don’t want to spoil anything by revealing too much about what I did like about it. I never fully watched the old Planet of the Apes films. I’ve seen most of the first one, but almost none of the others. However, I did watch the Tim Burton one starring Mark Wahlberg. To be honest, the movie is really not that good. The worst part about it is the ending. When Mark Wahlberg travels back to his original time, why is the planet still overrun by apes? He somehow traveled through dimensions. And secondly, why do the apes have the exact same history as the humans? Lincoln’s statue is still there, but it’s an ape, and all the architecture is the same. It’s hard to believe that the planet would look identical to ours if apes had ruled it. Thankfully, this movie is not a disappointment like the Tim Burton one was.
I’m not a big fan of reboots, because it seems like a cheap way to make money for movie producers. However, when the end result is a movie like this, I really can’t complain. Star Trek was terrific, as was Batman Begins and I’m really hoping the new Spider-Man will be too. This movie is not necessarily a reboot, because it dates back to the very beginning of the ape takeover, unlike the first Planet of the Apes movie with Charleton Heston. In the movie, James Franco develops a possible cure of Alzheimer’s and they begin the testing on apes. One of the effects, as you should already know, results in increased intelligence. After an accident, the apes are put down, but one of them gives birth to a baby (Caesar) before it dies. The genes are passed down to Caesar, who is taken care of by James Franco as he continues doing tests on his Alzheimer’s cure through studying Caesar. When an accident sends Caesar to a prison with a hundred other apes, Caesar begins to understand that he doesn’t belong with the humans. And so begins the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I was curious to find out how the apes would take over the planet since as you probably saw in the commercial, there are only about a hundred of them fighting against the humans. I have no complaints with the way it was done though.
One difference between this film and the Tim Burton one is the incorporation of CGI for the apes. In the earlier film, they are wearing costumes and look more like freaks than like apes. The apes are completely computer generated in the new film, and I have to say that it looks pretty awesome. There are some scenes where it’s not done to perfection, but Caesar really does look like a real life ape in a lot of scenes. It’s weird how you can feel so much for computer generated characters. You really do feel unfortunate for Caesar the way he’s treated in some scenes in the movie. I guess that’s why some critics have been saying that Andy Serkis (who played Caesar the same way Sam Worthington played Jake Sully in Avatar) should be nominated for an Oscar. You’re on his side the entire movie, and are going to be cheering for the apes to win the battle. In my opinion, I don’t think his performance was Oscar worthy, and I don’t believe the Academy will ever nominate someone for acting a computer generated character, but we shall see next year. In terms of the acting from the other stars, Freida Pinto wasn’t the best in my opinion, but the rest of the actors were solid. I’d also like the mention the director because a lot of the film was shot on green screen, and that’s never an easy task.
This movie surpassed my expectations and it’ll probably surpass yours. It is one of the best movies of the summer, one of the best reboots to an old franchise, and you shouldn’t wait to spend those $12 on a movie you won’t regret seeing. Even Armond White gave it a positive review…
Score: 8.5-9.0 (I’m not set on an exact score, but someone in between there)
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