Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Director: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto

Synopsis:
An experimental Alzheimer's drug has the unexpected effect of dramatically boosting a young chimpanzee's intelligence.

Impressions:
Well, since I wasn't particularly interested in the previous Planet of the Apes remake at the time, obviously I didn't bother with this one either. I'd seen some of the first act a few years ago, but never sat through the whole thing until recently. I did jokingly lament that because they were effectively skipping ahead to Apes 4, we were missing out on the creepy nuclear cult and San Francisco socialite apes. I'd wondered at the time about how this seemed to be a significant shift in tone and style from Burton's Apes. This is because it isn't meant to be a follow-up to that movie. They rebooted the franchise with this. When the movie came out, a lot of skeptics' response to the scenes from the trailers of the apes on the attack was, "Why don't you just shoot the monkeys?!" Well, they partially succeed at justifying it in the film, but it's still a touch lame. What I will give the movie full credit for is how it sets up the downfall of mankind. The setup for this film and how it follows through to its sequel clears up a lot of the issues I had with Apes 4 and 5. That has to count for something. The callbacks to the original film feel painfully forced (both coming from Tom Felton, interestingly enough), but I guess you can give it a pass. While I liked Caesar's character arc, the overall plot wasn't particularly amazing to me. It's still a good enough film and worth a watch.

Rating:
Watch It