Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Essential viewing for fans of the series

[philosoraptor42]

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)


A remake of "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" with references to the series in general, solutions to transition problems in the original movie series, providing a massive increase in confidence in the franchise after Tim Burton's travesty and making me seriously excited about the possibility of a sequel.


Also, even if you don't bother to read the rest of the review, be aware that once the credits start rolling you need to stay seated for about a minute before you get up to leave. There's a little extra bit (though thankfully you don't have to wait for the credits to finish, like in recent Marvel movies, in order to see it).


Okay, so I have to admit that the first Planet of the Apes movie I ever saw was the Tim Burton version. It's pretty much what I've come to expect from most Tim Burton movies. First he draws you in with some impressive visuals and even some funny lines between characters, then the plot turns out not to be quite as interesting as you'd hoped and finally there's some major flaw somewhere that makes you lose faith in the whole thing. The fatal flaw in Burton's Planet of the Apes was, of course, General Thade's face on the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Thankfully, General Thade looks unlikely to appear in any future movies. In fact, I'd be tempted to argue that you can either see this new movie as a remake of "Conquest" or you need to say that this is the third reboot of the series.

The original series of five movies needs to be thought of as two pairs of movies and then a final movie attempting to connect them. The first sequel ("Beneath") was expected to be the last ever PotA movie and ends in a way that is very final indeed. "Escape", the third movie in the series, then had to completely rejig the mythology and it was the imagination which went into Escape that made Conquest an interesting enough sequel to produce this new remake. While Tim Burton's reboot completely altered the whole premise of PotA, you could quite easily watch Rise in the place of Escape and find that both follow on from the original movie without any discrepancy. (Or at least, neither of them has much more discrepancies than the other.) That is why I would say that Rise is no more of a reboot than Escape was.

Rise has its failings, which means that it fits very comfortably in the PotA series of movies. Like every one of its forebears, it is certainly not perfect. While the original trailer which shortened one of James Franco's lines to "we call it... the cure" made it look like the science would be absurdly stupid, the line actually turns out to be "we call it... the cure for Alzheimers". Certainly the science comes off as a hugely contrived MacGuffin, but this is sci-fi and sometimes you just have to let a few things go.

Asides from that, the most worrying thing about the pre-movie footage (of which I feel I saw far too much) was firstly that it seemed to suggest that the apes would appear to be immune to bullets (a problem that was very obvious in Matthew Broderick's "Godzilla" movie, presumably in order to give the movie a lower age rating) and secondly that it looked like a remake of "Deep Blue Sea" with apes instead of sharks. Thankfully neither of these is an issue. First of all, the way they deal with bullets is rather cleverer than the footage I saw would suggest. The second point, however, will take rather more time to explain.

Our central ape is called Caesar (just like in Conquest) and we get a good long build up for his character solidifying him as the central point for our attention. The first half of the movie is basically build-up though and it is not until the second half that things really get going. It is then that we see Caesar having to interact with other apes and it is those scenes which really captured my imagination during this movie. Obviously the apes shall "rise" (thankfully the tagline wasn't "Apes... Shall... Rise!" in "Clash of the Titans" style), but the way that happens is remarkably well done. However, the first half was necessary to get us invested in that same rise that had myself and many like me groaning during trailers.

One of the actors is a bit of a weak link in this movie. Which one? Well, to be frank, James Franco. I felt the need to finally get around to watching 127 hours before I made a judgement on this because, if Franco's performance in that blew me away, I might more easily blame his rather average impression in Rise on the director. It's notable that this is a British director and all the best performances seem to come from British actors. Before I carry on ranting about Franco's performance, let's look at a few of the other parts.

Obviously Andy Serkis is British and this must be his finest hour as a motion-capture actor (after some pretty fantastic work already under his belt). Still, it must be pointed out the Andy Serkis is an amazing actor in general. He recently gave a wonderful performance as Ian Dury in "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll". He was also absolutely chilling in his performance as serial killer "Ian Brady" in Tom Hooper (of "King's Speech" fame)'s fantastic made-for-TV drama "Longford".

Another British actor is James Franco's boss, played by David Oyelowo. For me, he is best known for his performance as Danny in the TV series "Spooks" (known in America as "MI5"). In movies I've only seen him in a brief appearance towards the end of "Last King of Scotland", where he really proves his spurs by being a serious impact with only a tiny amount of screen time. One thing that doesn't work quite so well in his performance in Rise is where he drastically changes his mind about a decision far too quickly and easily. However, that's a script issue really and overall he gives a wonderful performance.

Of course, there are some pretty amazing performances from American actors too. John Lithgow is wonderful as always as a man suffering from Alzheimers. (His appearance in the fourth series of "Dexter" served to remind a lot of people that he's not just a comedy actor.)

Tyler Labine is an American actor (who I recognised from the tv series "Reaper") who also gives a pretty good performance in a relatively small part. Similarly, the consistently awesome Brian Cox makes an expectedly awesome impression in his small role.

I think the biggest criticism has tended to be for the role which Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy for Harry Potter) plays. I must say though, that as an irredeemably evil character he does a great job. I get the impression that the script expects him to ham it up and that's what he does. The idea that a worker in an ape sanctuary should be someone who despises apes is pretty weird, but heck that's the role he's been handed and you do what you can, right?

Okay, so Freida Pinto doesn't make a big impression, but then again she doesn't seem to have much opportunity. She is basically playing James Franco's love interest and they've clearly decided that they don't want her relationship with James Franco to take up too much attention. (I guess when looking for someone who can portray a love interest character with minimal lines and screen time, they thought of Slumdog Millionaire, eh?)

So James Franco then... Well, he's not bad. It's just that, with all this wonderful talent backing him up it's a pity that he doesn't seem to be much of a leading man. Of course, Andy Serkis is the real leading man, but our entry point before we accept Andy Serkis as the leading role is Franco and he simply doesn't have the gravitas to carry the role he's been given. It's particularly frustrating when he's giving a voiceover narration. He's not a block of wood, but he's no Roddy McDowall either.

The human characters in this piece often come across as caricatures and the workings of scientific complex working on this "cure" seem more than a little unrealistic. However, this is all turned around when the variety of ape characters are set up. It's hard to believe someone saying in a review that whooping CGI animals are going to somehow end up as fuller characters than quite reasonably acted speaking parts, but you're going to have to trust me on this. The apes in this movie can really capture your heart.

The eponymous "rise" in this movie is portrayed as rather more triumphant than we might want to see it, but then again this is something we find in Conquest too. Should we take this rise of the apes as triumphant or deeply disturbing? Well, in the end it's up to you. What's important is that, in spite of what you might feel right now, once you've seen the movie you will actually care. Seeing is believing, so I suggest you check this movie out now, especially if you were a fan of the original 5 movies.

As with X Men: First Class, this isn't perfect. The characters don't always feel as fleshed out as I'd like and the plot has some questionable elements. However, it's so much fun that by the end you aren't really worried about that. This is quite simply a fantastic piece of entertainment.


4.5/5 - Very good, but not excellent

(video link)


SPOILERS SECTION!

I normally don't do one of these but with all the references to old Planet of the Apes movies, I felt I needed to list at least a few of them. Naturally that means the section below will contain spoilers for the new movie and (if you haven't seen them) for the old movies too.






They didn't have to keep the name Caesar for the main character of course. However, more interestingly, in the original Conquest "Caesar" is a name that he picks for himself. (Though his original name "Milo" is given to him by his parents.)

Tom Felton is given at least two of Charlton Heston's lines from "Planet of the Apes". He says "get your hands off me you damned dirty ape!" The other line is: "It's a mad house! A mad house!" It's worth noting that Charlton Heston was actually repulsed quite a bit by the speaking apes he saw ruling the planet, so is Tom Felton's character pretty much the Charlton Heston figure of this movie? Perhaps the suggestion is that Charlton Heston wouldn't treat the apes much better than he was treated by them?

And of course, the use of a firehose on a defenceless ape captive is just like the treatment of Charlton Heston in the original PotA.

In Escape we are told that the first ape to speak says the word "no". Naturally Caesar in Conquest is fluent from the start. (He's already said "mama" in Escape.) However, in Rise we finally see what it would be like to see a non-speaking Ape suddenly learn to say "no" and it's quite an incredible moment.

Caesar plays with a statue of liberty toy. (Reference is obvious.)



Things I learnt in this movie:

If one ape goes crazy because of your treatment, your career is over. However, if you do illegal experiments on your father at home, you're in line to be a big success.

We only need one ape to show progress in order to approve a treatment, even when there are lots of other apes available for trials. Who cares about stuff like control groups, eh?

Chemically increasing your intelligence will also cause you to attain the power of speech, even if you are an ape without any kind of voice box.