The Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review

Been on holiday, that's why I haven't written anything. It's definitely not because I'm really, really, lazy...

Stunning special effects and a great cast projects this prequel to the Planet of the Apes saga from a simple money spinner into something that is entertaining, heartfelt and even somewhat believable.

When I heard that a ‘prequel’ to the Planet of the Apes, a series which I don’t really hold any affinity for thanks to a rather poor effort by a one Mr Tim Burton, I was sceptical. How do you portray the world being overrun by apes (a seemingly ludicrous premise) without it seeming ridiculous? Well apparently Director Rupert Wyatt had the answer, and I have to admit, I was wrong. It is possible, and I never thought I would ever say this: I’m excited about where this long running series is going to go next.

Though in essence the film is attempting to show the ‘rise of the planet of the apes’ (hence the title), it is also centrally about the relationship between a man and a chimp, in the form of James Franco as Will Rodman, a scientist who is attempting to create the cure for alzheimer's through a animal experiements, and Caesar (MOCAPed excellently by Andy Serkis who seems to have a monopoly over the MOCAPing-actor industry) a chimp who is abandoned in the lab after his mother is shot after trying to escaping. We follow the relationship between these two characters as well as Will’s efforts to find a cure for alzheimer’s, which is brought down to an emotional level through his relationship with his alzheimer’s effected father. Caesar is not just an ordinary monkey though and Will soon realises that the drug that had been given to his mother had passed genetically into him and that it made him incredibly smart (you can see where this is going by now, right?). Sadly, as happens in many of these animal themed films, Caesar’s nature takes over when he attempts to protect Will’s father from their neighbours and has to be locked up pending animal trial. From here Caesar is incarcerated in what amounts to a monkey prison where he must fight to survive against the other monkeys and the ‘evil’ handlers in the form of Tom Felton (yeah, that Malfoy Guy), and Brian Cox.

Alongside this there are also further genetic shenanigans as Will continues to create a drug capable of curing alzheimer’s with, not all too surprisingly, disastrous results, mainly through the money grabbing hands of his boss, Steven Jacobs, played by David Oyelowo.

I won’t ruin anything else for you (I’m sure I’ve done that enough), but eventually we have some monkey on human action as Caesar leads his comrades into a full on monkey-revolt, though with not so much apocalyptic results. In fact the end of the film leaves the fate of human kind in an ambiguous fate, though strongly hints, especially in the post credit scenes, at the real downfall of the human race. There clearly seems room for a number of sequels.

The film obviously deals with some contentious issues, namely that of animal testing, the caring for animals in a confined environment as well as animal cruelty. I thought this was handled well with some the scenes intending to shock the viewer and increase their empathy for the chimps in question, though not taking this too far. The fact that all the chimps are CGI certainly makes you feel better about it, but these scenes are certainly effective and by the end I certainly wanted the human to get their just deserts, especially Tom Felton character, an actor who has an uncanny ability at being a complete arsehole.

In terms of performances pretty much all of the actors and actresses play their roles well. James Franco is in full on serious mode (no drug jokes here thankyouverymuch!) and he certainly gives the role some gravitas that it really did need to be effective. For me though, it was the role of Andy Serkis as Caesar which is truly stunning. He brings life to the chimp like no simply CGI chimp could, especially in facial expressions and body language. By the end I really felt attached to Caeser, even if he was only a collection of pixels grafted onto a man wearing a suit with a bunch of ping pong balls on it. There were a couple of bugbears, namely Freida Pinto’s character Caroline. She played her role well enough, but the role itself seemed totally unnecessary, providing an extremely simple side plot in the form of the relationship between herself and Will. Not that she harmed the film at all, but the film would have been just fine without her.

Obviously one of the most breathtaking things about Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the CGI apes themselves. Really, if I hadn’t already known they were CGI, I would have had my doubts about whether they were real or not. Each ape is so incredibly detailed, with the minutia of movement and expression nailed in every scene, that they never at any stage looked fake, which would have somewhat hampered my fondness of them, especially Caesar.

I don’t think I really have anything negative to say about it, though obviously it doesn't do anything revolutionary, but everything it does do is executed extremely well. Perhaps there could have been a little more action, though this wasn’t a major problem. There is certainly enough to keep the film moving at a decent pace with the final action scenes making up for the lack of action in the middle sectors of the film. These action scenes definitely carry a lot of weight, simply because nobody likes to see animals getting hurt while though the fact that human’s are getting outwitted by chimps at every turn (though really really really smart chimps), this never seems too ludicrous, though I felt that a lot of those police should definitely get fired, if they aren’t too busy being wiped out by a chimp invasion!

With the climax of the film, as mentioned, we don’t see the end to the human race and the growth of a super intelligent chimp race, in fact it seems like there are rooms for a number of consecutive prequels before the timeline reaches that of the original. Throughout the film there are certainly nods to what is to come, background televisions and newspapers telling of a mission to mars and a space ship lost in space, obviously setting up the events of the first film.

For me though, this would have served as a good and enjoyable movie in its own right without the ties to this long running series. The action, the acting and the script elevate it above many of its contemporaries in the genre of random sequels and prequels for the hell of it.

Perhaps this will all end in another remake of the original, and perhaps that will also be as poor as that of Tim Burton’s 2001 attempt, but until then, I am quite content with the fact that they made a Planet of the Apes movie in 2011 without in being diabolically bad. If you’re interested at all, I’d give this one a look. What else have you got to do anyway?