It has been awhile since I have seen a movie in the theater -- the most recent was X-men. Thirty dollars isn't as easy to part with as it use to be. Something really has to appeal to me for me to part with my hard-earned money these days. I thought I might be willing to shell out for a number of films that preceded Apes this summer, but my interest quickly cooled. Yet, after seeing the ads for this movie, I realized it was going to be a revenge flick, and I love revenge flicks. The fact that the buzz surrounding this film was so positive only piqued my interest more. So, after watching all the trailers online about a dozen times I decided to go check it out.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes unfurls with an actual story to tell. It does not rehash like the Tim Burton film, which had its merits, but fell well short of being considered a good movie. There are nods to the other movies in this film, but this is an origin story.
It's funny that as a writer, I have been told over and over again "never start at the beginning" and "always start at some point later on." The reason was to start with action and reflect later. It's obvious that there has been a change in this philosophy over the past ten years, with so many stories going back to their origins. Why? Well, as a rule of thumb, I think opening a story later on is still a good way of doing things, but so many movies these days have no where to go but back to the beginning, and that is why we are seeing more films start from scratch.
Anyway, back to the movie. It opens with the capture of a number of chimpanzees from the wild, immediately making the viewer sympathize with them. This is needed in a revenge flick. For most of the movie the humans are made into the bad guys, except for Franco's character, Will, and those close to him. Will is doing research on a possible cure for Alzheimers; one he hopes might cure his father, John Lithgow.
There are so many touching moments through out this movie between father and son, and then also with Caesar - the infant chimpanzee he secretly took home from the lab and raised, played masterfully by Andy Serkis - and his perceived father, Will.
In fact, much of the film is dedicated to the building of relationships. Even when an adolescent Caesar is placed inside a Primate Facility after a misunderstanding with Will's neighbor, he must, for the first time in his life, create relationships with his kind. But they are not like him, for he is so much smarter than them, and comes from a happy home. Only a circus orangutang, who also speaks sign language, can, at first, appreciate and understand Caesar.
But Caesar learns quickly how the Facility works and soon becomes their leader. Once that happens, the movie really gets going, and it is time for some comeuppance mankind.
Even though there were a few plot holes, and some of the CGI was suspect, this was a really good film. It touched on almost all the right notes, except for the love relationship between Will and Caroline, Freida Pinto, which never seemed all that genuine. The fact that Caesar never got all hot and bothered by any of the females at the facility was probably due to how silly it would seem on film, as it did in other Ape films.
Rupert Wyatt, the director, has successfully crafted a story worth re-watching (hopefully with added or extended scenes for the dvd), and I can't say that about too many of the recent films I have seen. Except for those diehard ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) fans, most people, young and old, should be able to take something positive away from this movie.
-aap
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