Rise of the Planet of the Apes

by Steve Kochems

Leave it to San Francisco and their liberal ass agenda to bring about the fall of civilization! And of course, it’s headed up by the king of kush James Franco- it’s no wonder Charlton Heston is going to be pissed off!

Okay, all jokes and politics aside, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a well-made film. And it’s not that right wing either. And though of course the nature of that universe was always a little conservative, what with the head of the NRA as the hero, use of apes as immigrant labor and an eventual ape apocalypse, liberty is not lost here.

Will Rodman (Franco) is a revolutionary geneticist whose goal is to create a virus that will promote the repair and growth of brain cells to counteract the effects of Alzheimer’s. But like most atrocities, the road is paved by these good intentions. After his first test ape is killed by security for running wild, Will discovers it was an act of protection rather than hysteria. His program is shut down and Will takes the infant ape home instead of killing it.

He grows to become Caesar, an ape with an intelligence level above the average human. With that, Will decides to test the drug on his father Charles (John Lithgow), who suffers from Alzheimer’s. It yields amazing results as his father recovers and Caesar is learning at an astounding rate. However, natural antibodies begin to counter act the drug and Charles regresses. Meanwhile, Caesar longs to find his place in the world and his animal instincts aren’t something he fully can control or understand yet either.

Rise is not the best film of this series but it’s certainly second (what shame is there in being second to a classic?). The time is well portioned between Will’s work and Caesar’s rise. Personally, I have a tough time looking at James Franco as a geneticist or as a serious person at all (thanks, Pineapple Express and 2011 Oscars), but he does play a good father. Lithgow is able to shine as he’s well cast for a fairly loopy and confused old man.

However the unsung hero that makes Rise work is none other than Andy Serkis. The man who brought you Gollum and King Kong, Serkis does his stop-motion work again to create the fluent movements of Caesar. He blends them so well that a transition can clearly be seen in his posture, walk, and mannerisms. The apes in general are what make this movie worth seeing as the plot is little more than a rise of slave or monster movie.

And wisely, Rise leaves room to push further. I won’t be surprised if I hear in the next few days they’ve green lit a second film and if Hollywood has its way it will be with two new and worthless writers, a hack director, and still star James Franco (hey, it happened to Thor). But enough gruff, Rise is definitely worth heading to the theater to see and might even be worth some Oscar talk, that is if they’ll consider a damn dirty ape for Best Actor.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

by Mike Kamrowski

I would agree with Steve on this one- this movie was pretty great. I thought Franco, while it really is hard to see him in a more serious role (and yes, a movie about monkey mischeif is more serious than Pineapple Express), did astand-up job in the father role to Ceaser. I loved the CGI- everything was as life-like as it could be without, well, being real.

My favorite part of this movie, and at first I didn’t want to admit this to myself, was how it tied a lot of loose ends together. The original (and Mark Wahlberg remake) Apes was a great movie, but it left a lot of questions. How did the apes get so damn smart? What happened to the Earth? Why is everyone dead, and why are those that are still alive acting like cavemen? While some of those questions were answered (vaugely), I always wanted a back story: Rise gave me one.

I say I didn’t want to admit that learning the answer to these questions was my favorite part of this movie because that was the appeal of the original Apes flick for me: you didn’t know what happened and, fuck it, the movie wasn’t going to give you much of an answer. Rise showed us how the crew in the original came to land back on Earth (first manned trip to Mars gone bad), how everyone died out (FRANCO!!!) and how the apes gained intelligence beyond that of humans (crazy purple knock out gas).

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone, unless you’re a bleeding heart animal rights activist… lot of monkey murder.

Note: Tom Felton, the guy that plays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, is in this movie and guess what!? He's an asshole! What a surprise... poor kid is typecast for life.