Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
James Franco
Freida Pinto
John Lithgow
Andy Serkis
Directed By:
Rupert Wyatt
I have what I could qualify of an "average" relationship to the Planet Of The Apes franchise. OK, I've been quite thorough. I've seen the old movies as a teenager, read Pierre Boulle's novel and was utterly disappointed by the Tim Burton attempt to reboot the franchise ten years ago*. It's my feelings towards the franchise that are average, I guess. The films were cool, but the apes being so humanoid, that it made the whole franchise just a very spectacular cautionary tale for racism. Apes were behaving like humans with a lot of hair. I know, thousands of year of adaptation and all. The trailer for RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES got me pumped up, because it featured some apes behaving like apes, meaning that they fucked shit up on the Golden Gate bridge, angry at the tyranny of mankind. It's that dichotomy that I was always curious about. The conflict between a King Kong-like primal instinct and the sudden birth of intellect. Did RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES quenched my thirst that? Sort of.
But any movie featuring James Franco wouldn't satisfy me completely. He plays a scientist named Will Rodman, who's father Charles (John Lithgow) used to be a brilliant scientist too until Alzheimer disease got the best of him and turned him into a burden for his family. His field of study? A cure for Alzheimer. I know, brutally ironic, isn't it? Will injects an ape with a virus that is supposed to heighten intellectual capacity as a test and it works very well, except that the ape goes on a rampage and has to be put down. Will's boss orders him to kill her baby, but he can't and brings him home instead. The baby proves to be super smart and learns sign language. He's also the reason why Will gets a super hot girlfriend (Freida Pinto) and his dad back**. The baby he calls Caesar is the source of many good things in his life, but mankind is not ready to accept the evolution of apes and a potential threat to their dominion over the kingdom of the wild.
While I thought the movie was good, by that I mean it was entertaining enough, something felt off. Like that movie was being written by some hard working screenwriter and that his beta readers kept telling him: "It's awesome, man. But it looks way too much like a Planet Of The Apes storyline. No way it's getting picked up, it would turn into an ugly lawsuit for sure". Then the smart screenwriter convinced a studio executive to buy the license for Planet Of The Apes to finally get his script shot. This a hundred percent hypothetical, but this is what it felt like. For seventy-fire percent of the movie, it's the story of a man and his baby ape, getting in misadventures. Not exactly B.J AND THE BEAR, but the relationship it between Will and Caesar takes so much place that the actual rise of the apes*** is trapped in a very tight window of time and the movie ends right as things are getting interesting. I know we're promised a sequel in 2013, but still. I don't go watch a movie because I want to see a movie that doesn't exist yet.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is in perfect harmony with the relationship I already had with the franchise. It entertained me, but it didn't blew me away. From the moment the apes are ganging up and escaping the test facility (it's not like I'm spoiling anything here), it's a fairly spectacular action movie but you have to be patient to get there. Here's where I'm torn because I know the sequel will be ten times better if it just picks up where this movie ended so the salesmanship aspect of RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES has technically worked. I know I'm going to get what I want out of this particular reboot, but it's frustrating that I'll have to wait and watch multiple movies to be finally satisfied. But it was good. Not a life-changing movie in any way, but it managed to not insult me and keep me focused for two hours. I'm just very demanding towards franchises when they are rebooted.
SCORE: 75%
* Unlike most normally constituted human beings, I do not enjoy Tim Burton's movies like they were the best bite-sized danish pastries in the world.
** He starts shooting his father with the same virus.
*** That's what this movie should have been called by the way. RISE OF THE APES.