Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

            Well, after that terrible Planet of the Apes adaptation that came out sometime in the early 2000s, I wasn’t very thrilled about getting another Apes movie this year. The previews looked promising, but don’t they all? In fact, the first time I saw the preview, I sighed and rolled my eyes skyward, not pleased. However, much to my surprise, I enjoyed Rise of the Planet of the Apes very much.

            The story does NOT start with some mission to space or whatever. It starts in a more modern era in California, in a lab developing a cure for Alzheimer’s. (actually, it starts with chimps being captured for testing in a jungle somewhere, but that’s beside the point) Story progression flows smoothly for the most part—it gets a little tricky when Cesar is in the chimp sanctuary—but in all, it’s easy to follow what’s going on: scientist’s (James Franco) project gets shut down, he finds a baby chimpanzee whose mother was his best and brightest subject, discovers that the genes have been passed on, and decides to raise Cesar to see how well the drug worked.

            In short, it worked well. In chimps. Not in humans, like originally intended.

            The plot was well thought out and believable, and Cesar’s descent—or rather, rise—into a leadership position over all the primates in the sanctuary is intriguing, delightful to watch, even. Andy Serkis does a remarkable job bringing Cesar to life, and the CGI team who worked on The Lord of the Rings trilogy worked on this movie, making it that much more enjoyable. I loved Maurice the orangutan. James Franco’s interactions with his father Cesar also prove to connect you to the characters (though, the whole Cesar-gets-James-a-date thing was rather cheesy). Tom Felton does a great job being an antagonistic jerk, and the shock of his death has more of a “you got what you deserved, suckah” feel to it than “oh no, he died”. Also, there was “Whoa! Never saw that coming!!!”, which is always a good thing.

            The sanctuary-breakout and running to the redwood forest was a spectacular feat of filmography and animation. The director really did a fantastic job there. And that credit sequence? Yeah, there are more of this series on the way, and I’m going to see each and every one of them. Rise of the Planet of the Apes proved to be more than just an attempted continuation of a cult classic. It’s a completely new Hollywood enterprise rising to its own place in the realm of movie history, revamped and prime to explain the Rise of the Apes. I would definitely recommend seeing it. 4 kernels out of 5.